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AUTHOR: 


MONTALEMBERT, 
CHARLES  FORBES 


TITLE: 


PIUS  IX  AND  FRANCE 
IN1849ANDIN1859. 


PLACE: 


LONDON 


DA  TE : 


1859 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


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^-^5       Monladembert,   cCbarles  Fortes  Rene'  de  Tryonj, 
'  ctnte   de.   1810—70, 

r;        Ti     ,     :    Prance   in  1849   and  in  1859;   tr 


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with  additions 
London  1859. 


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LOXDO^vT: 
.\  EUELIXGTON  AUCADE. 


X 


REVUE    IXDEPEXDANTE. 

POLITIQUE-PIIILOSOrrTTE-LITTERATUllE— 
SClEXCES-liCAUX-AKTS. 

La  P^exie  LirxKRUR.  .v  cettk  R.vve  ,«  sols  la  DiRKcrrox  ok 

M.  GUSTAVE   [VIA3S0N, 

Professeur  de  Litt.'rature  Franraise  a  IIarro^^  School. 


La  Revue  Indi-  pexdante  parait  le  1"  de  cJk 


M-^EFFS,  15,  BUiiLIXGTOX  AliCAJ3£. 


aque  mois,  a  Londres,  chez 


LIVHAISON   DU    1-   JUILLET,   If^SO 

LeTTIIE    a    L'£:DIT.:r-a    dK    la    Jlr.VUE    LvDLrEND^MF 

L  Emprunt  r,,^  Cisa  Cent  MiLLroxs. 
i»U  Farti  Likkral  en  FiiAxcn. 


PAETif:  LirrrRviKE. 

;  par  M.  de  Barante. 


Mole 


Le  Parleraent  ct  la  F->nd*^ : 
LaLiberce;  par  j  Sivrov 

t-un-res  Posth'un.^s  d'A'f'cd  de  -Mu><ct. 

L'E-Hse  et  I'Emnin)  Komain  au  4'«=  Si^cle ;  par  le  Prince  \    r.P  n^nr-r.^ 

wl^U^^^^^      Portraits  Litr..ra,res  dn  Seizic-ne  Siecle;  par  Lr:ox  Feuger; 

Elides  sur  Ja  Xfarine. 

&>ais  de  Uorale  et  de  Critique;  par  Ekxe.t  Prvxv 

Ls>a:sue  Politique  et  de  Litteratuie:  p.r  M'.  Pju  vost-P  vu  v  nr.r 

EssaMle  Philosopluo  11:1  ^ie.ne;  par  Iulk  Sa^'^J^^"''''" 

Les  1  reimers  Jours  du  Protestamisme  eu  France;  par  H.  i>f  Tuiqukti 


LIVRAISOX   DU   r-  AOUT   1859. 
La  Note  nu   '  MovriKL-R.' 
r>F    L'Alliancf   AN'GLAISE. 

FllAGMEN'TS    DT:    CoaRESi'ONDANCE. 

bL'    LA    blTL'ATlOy    DU    TilEATRK    E\    FraXCE  . 

PAllTIE    LITTER  vnu:. 
Es-sais  sur  le  Genie  de  Pindare,  ct  sur  la  pocsie  iTmiie ;  par  \l   ViLiEifAf v 

Lettres  n,-di  es  de  la  Pniice=*se  dm  Urdns,  par  M.  A.  Gfffuov 

J  u.Mus  p  jpuhures  S.nt>cs.  fnuimrps  par  Aiiguste  Dozov. 

^''Tr' V        '       **'*''"'''  '^^  Itourdaloue  et  de  Massdlou  ;  avec  une  preface 

Les  Giiopes  Gauloises ;  par  M.  Claude  Sauvage. 

ivonuus  Nouver»'i;c. 

L'ilonusie  d.-  .Nc'c.';  par  Gi.orgr  Saxd. 

Srcmes  d'Ari^to,.n.ui^  tr.i'i.mes  en  vers  franrais  par  Eug? xf  Fvlifx 

Lute  A.^hab.-U^ae  des  Oavraye,  pablie,  en  France  jusqu'au  2o'juiiiei  l8o9 


\ 


PIUS  IX.  AND  FRxiNCE 


IN  1840  AND  IN  ISJO. 


BT 


THE  COUx\T  DE  MOXTALEMBERT, 

OXE  OP  THE  FOETT  OF  THE  FEEXCH  ACADEMY. 


Translated  from  the  Pamphlet  reprinted  from  the  Correspondant, 
with  Additions  and  Convctioiis  by  the  Autlior. 


THE   ONLY  COMPLETE  EDITIOX. 


LOXBON: 

W.  JEFFS,  15,  BURLINGTON  ARCADE, 

Als'D  ca,  KING'S  KOAD,  BEIGHTON. 

1859. 


\ 


JOHX   ISWABC   TATLOE,    LITTLB   QCBKK   STBUST, 
LIHCOLir'8  ISTf  PTBLDS,   tOSDOX. 


\ 


1    .    i 


The  'Moniteur'  piiblisliccl  iiic  following  warning,  ad- 
dressed to  the  '  Correspondant :' — 

Considering  the  article  published  by  the  journal  the  '  Cor- 
respondant' in  its  number  of  the  25th  October,  1S59,  under 
the  signature  of  Ch.  de  ^loutalembert,  and  under  the  title  of 
*  Pius  IX.  and  Prance  in  IS  19  and  in  1S59 '; 

More  especially  having  regard  to  the  following  passages  : — 

"  It  was  France  which  preserved  the  temporal  independence 
of  the  Holy  See  in  1S19,  and  yet  it  is  she  w  ho  allows  it  to  be 
shaken  and  dimini^lied  in  1S59  .  .  .  Once  again,  it  is  this  war, 
carried  by  France  into  Italy,  that  will  have  brought  about  the 
destruction  of  the  temporal  authority  of  the  Pope  in  a  third  of 
his  territories,  and  the  irreparable  disorder  of  the  remainder. 
The  eldest  daughter  of  the  Church  w  ill  remain  accountable  for 
it  to  the  present  as  to  history,  to  Europe  as  to  God.  .  .  . 

"  The  policy  of  England  has  but  one  name,  it  is  ignoble.  .  .  . 

"  As  to  Piedmont  .  .  .  we  have  seen  with  bitter  regret  that 
noble  country  exchange  its  patient  and  laborious  task,  so  fruit- 
ful and  so  pure,  as  a  moral  and  intellectual  guide,  for  that  of  a 
greedy  and  impatient  adventurer  .... 

"  But  we  must  declare  that  if  Italy,  instead  of  decreeing  a 
statue  to  falsehood,  to  political  depravity  personified  in  jMachia- 
velli  ...  It  is  known  that  the  Tuscan  Government  has  just 
decided  that  statues  to  ]\rachiavelli,  as  well  as  to  the  Emperor 
Napoleon  III.  and  King  Victor-Emmanuel  .  .  .  ." 

Considering  that  by  denouncing  the  war  carried  on  by  France 
in  Italy  as  haviug  led  to  the  destruction  of  the  temporal  au- 
thority of  the  Pope,  that  article  belies  the  result  of  our  glorious 
expedition  and  is  a  calumny  on  the  policy  of  the  Emperor ; 

That,  overstepping  all  the  limits  of  a  free  appreciation  of  fo- 
reign Governments,  it  insults  nations  allied  to  France ; 


'CD 


'■■I   ^  w 


306431 


\ 


4  WARNING    TO   THE    '  CORRESPONDANT.* 

That  the  assimilation,  designedly  insulting,  between  the 
name  of  Machiavelli  and  those  of  His  Majesty  Napoleon  III. 
and  of  Victor-Emmauuel,  is  a  direct  breach  of  the  respect  due 
to  the  Emperor ; 

Considering,  finally,  that  the  Governnment,  whose  dutv  it  is 
to  enligliteu  the  public  conscience,  cannot  abandon  to  the  mercv 
of  individual  passions  the  honour  of  French  policy,  the  glory 
of  our  arras,  and  the  loyalty  of  principles  so  solemnly  affirmed  ; 

It  is  decreed : 

1st  Art.  A  first  warning  is  given  to  the  journal  the  *  Cor- 
respondaut '  in  tlie  person  of  M.  de  Moutalembert,  who  si-ned 
the  article,  and  of  M.  Douniol,  the  publisher. 

Since  the  above  warning  ^Yas  given  to  tbe  '  Correspon- 
dant^  jn'oceedings  have  been  commenced  against  ;M.  de 
Moutalembert. 


B!3jr!uL^^ 


\ 


PIUS  IX.  AND  ITiANCE 

IN    1849    AND    IN    1859, 


lEN-  years  ago,  ucarly  to  the  clay,  in  the  month  of  Octo- 
ber, 18  i9,  a  debate  arose  in  the  Xational  Asscmblv  upon 
the  consequcnecs  of  the  Roman  expedition,-a  discussion 
rendered  necessary  by  the  pnbHcation  of  the  letter  of  the 
President  of  the  llcpublic  to  Colonel  Ed-ard  Xev  which 
announced  the  conditions  ivhich  the  Head  of  the  executive 
intended   to   impose   on   re-establishing  the  Pope  in  his 
States.     An  admirable  report  of  M.  Tliiers.had  laid  down 
111  a  sense  greatly  opposed  to  that  letter,  that  Pius  ix' 
shonld  be  reinstated  in  the  plenitude  of  liberty  and  sore^ 
reignty.     Let  us  quote  the  '  Monitcur'  :— 

"  The  frame,-  of  the  lieport.-Tvauce,  ouee  represented  at 
ifome  by  her  army,  could  never  commit  the  blunder  of  herself 
using  violence  towards  the  Holy  Father,  whom  she  had  iust 
delivered  from  the  violence  of  a  faction;  she  of  necessity  re- 
stored him  his  ihroue  and  his  liberty,  his  full  and  entire  free- 
dom,  for  that  was  her  mission.    But  she  acquired  from  circum- 
stances  a  right,  a  right  but  rarely  obtaiued-the  right  to  advise 
If  under  ordinary  circumstances  one  sovereign  should  take  it 
mto  his  licad  to  say  to  another,  '  Ton  are  acting  wron-Iv  •  act 
m  such  or  such  a  manner,'  he  would  he  at  once  committing  an 
error  and  a  usurpation.     13ut  a  sovereign  who  has  just  esta- 
blished another,  in  the  common  interest  of  order,  of  humanitv 
of  religion,  aud  of  political  equilibrium,  acquires,  from  the  Gra- 
vity of  the  surrounding  circunistances   and  from  the  service 
rendered,  the  light  to  give  advice.      IVance,  in  makhi-  an 


N 


PIUS    IX.    AND    TKANCE 


(C 


(i 


effort,  an  effort  not  to  be  measured  by  the  difficulty  of  taking  a 
few  bastions,  a  difllculty  which  happily  her  army  never  reckons 
such,  but  by  the  political  difficulties  that  such  an  enterprise 
may  entail, — France,  say  we,  in  malving  such  an  effort,  had  a 
right  to  beg  the  Jloly  Fatlier — 

"  (Interruptions  from  tlie  Extreme  Left.) 
A  member  of  the  Left. — To  beg  on  her  koees. 
Another  member, — That  is  the  language  of  a   Capuchin. 
M.  de  Montalembert  should  surely  be  satisiied.  (Agitation.) 

"  The  framer  of  the  Report. — I  am  astonished  at  the  inter- 
ruption. I  am  astonished  that  you  should  not  have  sufficient 
pride  to  understand  the  value  of  these  words  in  speaking  of 
a  power  which  has  not  an  army  of  half  a  million  of  men.  (Well 
said !  well  said !  from  the  Right ;  disturbance  at  the  Extreme 
Left.) 

"  I  resume.  France,  in  making  sucli  an  effort,  had  a  right 
to  beg  the  Holy  Father  to  take  proper  means  to  satisfy  his 
subjects,  and  to  appease  any  just  cause  of  discontent  they 
miujht  have.  She  had  the  ris^ht  to  advise  what  reforms  would, 
by  reconciling  the  subjects  of  the  Koman  States  with  the  pon- 
titical  sovereiguty,  dispense  with  her  returning  herself  to  Eome 
or  allowing  admission  to  Austria,  both  circumstances  equally 
to  be  regretted  by  every  one. 

"  France  did  not  find  the  Holy  Father  either  less  generous  or 
less  liberal  than  in  1847,  but  circumstances  had  sadly  altered. 

"...  Laws  were  announced,  and  the  word  of  Pius  IX.  suf- 
ficed to  dispel  all  doubts.  But  the  counsels  of  France  should 
be  directed  to  rendering  effective  the  motu  proprio,  and  above 
all,  to  extend  the  clemency  of  the  Pontiff  to  all  those  who  can 
be  amnestied  without  endangering  public  order. 

"  This  should  be  the  work  of  an  influence  kept  up  with  pa- 
tience, with  calmness,  and  respect — (quite  right!), — an  influence 
which  would  constitute,  we  repeat,  a  claim  inadmissible,  had 
not  imperative  circumstances  called  upon  us  to  use  it,  but 
which,  kept  within  proper  bounds,  is  perfectly  compatible  with 
the  independence  and  dignity  of  the  Holy  See.  (Quite  right ! 
quite  right !) 

*'  A  portion  of  this  task  is  done.  AVe  desire  that  the  re- 
mainder should  be  accomplished  as  early  as  possible,  and  that 


\ 


IN    1849  AND   IN    1859. 


1 

our  troops  may  soon  leave  the  Holy  Father  (whom  we  went 
to  deliver  and  not  to  enthral)  peaceably  established  in  his 
States.  (Well  said!  well  said!  Numerous  marks  of  approba- 
tion. The  speaker,  on  leaving  tlie  rostrum,  received  the  con- 
gratulations of  bis  friends.) 

"A  voice  from  the  Lrf L—And  not  a  word  about  the  letter  of 
the  President  of  the  Ilepublic.  (Prolonged  agitation.)"* 

Five  days  afterwards,  a  llcprcscntativc  of  the  people, 
who  rose  to  support  the  conclusions  of  M.  Thiers,  thus 
ended  his  speech  : — 

"Ilistory  will  relate,  that  a  thousand  years  after  Charle- 
magne,  and  fifty  years  after  Xapoleon.—a  thousand  years  after 
Gharlemagnc  had  acquired  immortal  glory  by  re-establishing 
the  pontitical  power,  and  fifty  years  after  Napoleon,  in  the 
height  of  his  power  and  prestige,  had  failed  in  the  eflbrt  to 
undo  the  work  of  his  incomparable  predecessor, — history  will 
relate  that  France  remained  true  to  her  traditions  and  d.eaf  to 
odious  designs. 

"  It  will  relate  that  thirty  thousand  Frenchmen,  led  by  the 
worthy  son  of  one  of  the  giants  of  our  grand  imperial  wars, 
left  the  shores  of  their  country  to  re-establish  in  Home,  in  the 
person  of  the  Pope,  riglit,  equity,  and  European  and  French 
interests. 

"It  will  relate  what  Pius  IX.  himself  states  in  his  letter  of 
thanks  to  General  Oudinot: — 

The  triumph  of  French  arms  has  been  over  the  enemies 
of  the  human  race.'     Yes,  that  will  be  one  of  the  greatest  o-lo- 
ries  of  France  and  of  the  nineteenth  century.     You  would  not 
diminish,  or  tarnish,  or  extinguish  that  glory  by  rushing  into  a 
tissue  of  contradictions,  complications,  and  inextricable  diffi- 
culties.    Do  you  know  what  would  for  ever  tarnish  the  glory 
of  the  French  flag  ?     It  would  be  opposing  that  flag  to  the 
cross,  to  the  tiara  it  has  just  rescued;  it  would  be  the  trans- 
formation of  the  French  soldiers  from  protectors  into  oppressors 
of  the  Pope ;  it  would  be  exchanging  the  position  and  glory 
of:  Charlemagne  for  tlic  miserable  counterfeit  of  Garibaldi." f 

•  Mouitcur,  11th  October,  1S19.         f  Moiiitcur,  20th  October,  1849. 


8 


\ 


PIUS    IX.    AND    FRANCE 


The  follovrin-  day  the  sii-jrcstions  of  M.  Thicks  were 
adopted  by  the  immense  majority  of  4G9  against  180. 

I  pity  those  who  will  only  perceive  in  the  revival  of  these 
recollcetions  the  satisfaction  of  personal  vanity  •  as  if  all 
vaTHty  would  not  be  buried  beneath  the  bitter  regret  arisincr 
from  the  contrast  between  what  took  place  then  and  wha" 
IS  passing  now. 

Ten  years  have  passed  since  then ;  a  French  army  has 
returned  to  Italy ;  she  there  added  an  immortal,  and  we 
may  say,  supcrlluous  glory,  to  all  its  ol<l  renown  ;  but  tlierc 
IS  too  much  reason  to  fear  that  the  result  of  this  glory  will 
be  to  do  tlie  work  of  Garibaldi,  and  to  undo  that  of  Charle- 


magne. 


Yes,  the  work  of  Charlon.ague  is  precisely  his  work  • 
lor  the  Legation,  where  the  insurrection  broke  out  whose 
separation  from  the  pontiHcal  States  is  efiectcd  throu..h 
our  war  m  Italy,  represents  precisely  that  Exarchate  of 
Kavenna,  the  gift  or  restitution  whereof  to  thellolv  Sec  by 
the  Carhmngiaus  constitutes  the  most  ancient  title'of  sove- 
reignty and  property  now  existing  in  the  world. 

A  bitterly  sad  contrast,  as  I  have  said,  between  1849  and 
18..9  !  not  only  in  the  acts  of  sovereign  authority  in  France, 
but  .11  the  dispositions  of  the   mass  of  the  conservative 
public,  tlien  so  enthusiastic  in  the  cause  of  Pius  IX    now 
so  lukewarm  and  indifterent;  and  again  in  the  disposition 
ol   Europe,  then  sympathizing  uni^ersally  with  the  expe- 
d.tion  to  Home,  and  .lisposed  to  contest  the  honour  of  it 
with  I  rauce  now  indifterent,  careless,  or  an  accomplice  of 
the  loe.     A\  hat  are  the  causes  of  this  contrast  ?     Have  we 
sufhcent  liberty  to  name  them?     No.     But  without  de- 
lining  them,  can  we  not  guess  or  perceive  thcra>     Yes 
It  IS  sufReiont  to  call  the  conscientious  attention  to  the 
subject  of  any  man  accustomed  to  reflect,  and  whom  the 
nu^urablc  blindness  of  an  e^  ident  eomi.lieity  with  the  causes 
of  the  present  position  of  affairs  lias  not  deprived  of  all 
clearness  of  mind. 


IN  1849  AND  IN  1859.  9 

Let  us  return  then  to  the  recollections  of  1849;  all  have 
their  value.     We  may  even  go  back  so  far  as  1848,  and  to 
that  first  discussion  respecting  Pius  IX.  on  the  30th  No- 
vember, 1848,  when  the  meaning  and  intention  of  the  first 
armed  demonstration  in  the  affairs  of  Eome  pierced  through 
all  the  uncertainties  and  dangers  of  the  situation ;  when  the 
name  and  example  of  Charlemagne  were  for  the  first  time 
invoked  with  success  in  a  republican  assembly ;  in  which 
M.  Ledru  Rollin,  with  a  hostile  intention  towards  the  ex- 
pedition, but  justly  and  logically,  thus  took  up  the  ques- 
tion :— "  Let  us  go  to  the  origin  of  the  subject.     You  can 
only  defend  one  individual,  the  temporal  prince,  the  tem- 
poral chief  of  the  States  of  the  Church,  struggling  against 
his  revolted  subjects.^^  ^ 

As  to  the  debate  of  October,  1849,  that  turned  entirely 
upon  the  letter  of  the  President  of  the  Republic  to  M. 
Edgard  Ney.     Invisible,  but  present,  not  only  was  it  the 
subject  of  the  refutations  of  M.  Thiers  and  M.  de  la  Ro- 
siere  in  an  excellent  address,  a  true  compendium  of  honest 
diplomacy  and  elevated  policy,  which  cannot  be  too  often 
read ;  it  was  more  especially  referred  to  by  the  orators  of 
the  Mountain,  by  M.  Victor  Hugo,  by  M.  Emile  Barrault, 
by  M.  Mathieu  (de  la  Drome),  by  General  Cavaignac  him- 
self.    The  interrupters,  who  then  played  a  greater  part  in 
the  Opposition  than  the  orators,  incessantly  interfered,  and 
every  moment  called  upon  the  Government  and  the  majority 
to  discuss  the  letter.f     "  They  have  constantly  praised  the 

*  *  Moniteur,'  Ist  December,  1848. 

t  «  The  President  of  the  Council  (Odilon  Barrot).— Whoever  uses  a  threat 
should  know  what  he  pledges  hunself  to.  A  vain  and  empty  threat !  it  is 
either  a  piece  of  cowardice  or  a  contemptible  boast.  (Well  said !  well 
said !) 

Different  voices  from  the  Left.—The  letter  !  the  letter ! 

The  President  of  the  CounciL—A.  threat  wliich  cannot  be  realized. 

The  same  voices  from  the  Left.—The  letter! 

The  President  of  the  Council.— ^ni  what  letter  do  you  want  ? 

The  same  voices  from  the  Left.—The  President's  ;  read  it! 

\_Numerous 


\, 


10 


PIUS    IX.    AND    FRANCE 


IN    1849   AND    IN    1859. 


11 


letter P  said  M.  Dupin  from  the  Left.  It  was  thereby  tho- 
roughly understood  that  the  conditions  laid  down  in  that 
letter  were  distasteful  to  the  majority,  and  were  impUcitly 
rejected  by  their  vote.  According  to  the  terms  of  the  con- 
stitution,  the  wiU  of  the  legislative  power  overruled  that  of 
the  executive.  The  Prince  Louis  Napoleon  was  the  first  to 
acknowledge  it  and  to  act  in  consequence.  He  clianged  his 
ministers,  who  had  not,  as  he  thought,  defended  his  policy 
with  sufficient  energy,  in  spite  of  their  efforts  to  establish 
a  species  of  conformity  between  his  letter  and  the  motu 
proprio  of  the  Pope ;  but  he  made  no  attempt  through  their 
successors  to  meddle  with  the  decision  of  the  Assembly.  The 
Pope  returned  to  Rome,  free  and  paramount.  The  Head 
of  the  French  Government  seemed  to  accept  the  position,— so 
much  so,  that  we  have  read  in  more  than  twenty  episcopal 
mandates,  that  it  was  he  alone  who  restored  the  Pope  to 
his  States ;  he  has  even  been  congratulated  upon  having 
effected  it  in  spite  of  the  Assembly. 

But  what  was  the  whole  programme  then  so  feared  and 

Numerous  voices  from  the  Centre  and  the  Might.— 'F.Yerj  one  knows  it ;  do 
not  read  it !  do  not  answer ! 

The  President  of  the  Council.— I  have  read  and  am  reading  from  the  let- 
ter, by  which  the  President  of  theRepubUc  appeals  solemnly  to  the  i)er8onal 
feelings  of  the  Pope  against  the  influences  by  which  he  is  surrounded. 
(Bead !  read !)     I  have  not  perceived  a  threatening  word. 

Numerous  voices  from  the  Left.— Yes !  Yes !  Read  it. 

From  all  parts,— 'Sol  no! 

M.  Charles  Dupin.— They  have  constantly  praised  the  letter.     .     .     . 

The  President  of  the  CoMnciZ.— Gentlemen,  in  spite  of  all  we  must  be 
just,  we  must  belong  to  justice  rather  than  to  party  ;  we  must  compare,  no 
one 'must  he  too  impudently  agamst  evidence,  for  evidence  brings  a  reaction. 
(Approbation  from  several  benches.) 

3L  Bourzat.— It  is  the  Ministry  which  every  day  falsifies  its  own  words. 

But  the  letter  ? 

The  President  of  the  Assembly  (Dupin).— M.  Bourzat,  this  is  at  least 
the  twentieth  time  of  your  calling,  '  But  the  letter  ?'  When  you  have 
the  right  of  speech,  you  shaU  read  it,  if  you  think  fit;  but  you  have  no 
right  to  address  insults  to  any  one.  (Hear  I  hear!)"  C  Moniteur,'  2l8t 
October,  1859.) 


P* 


striven  against  by  the  defenders  of  the  Holy  Chair  com- 
pared with  what  is  now  going  on?     It  is  no  longer  sought 
to  place  a  limit  upon  his  sovereign  authority  only,  but  it  is 
his  territory,  the  patrimony  of  the  Church,  which  is  not 
only  disputed  or  threatened,  but  which  is  already  divided 
and  reduced  by  a  third.     No  one  had  dreamed  in  1848  of 
reducing  or  trenching  upon  that  patrimony ;  no — no  one, 
not  even  Austria,  against  whom  Piedmont  at  that  time 
charged  it  as  a  crime  that  she  intended  to  occupy  the  Le- 
gations for  her  own  benefit.     And  now,  upon  the  instiga- 
tion and  the  direct  act  of  this  same  Piedmont,  under  the 
very  eyes  of  a  victorious  French  army,  and  as  a  miserable 
result  of  its  victories,^  the  spoliation  is  consummated ;  its 
authors  have  the  audacity  to  call  upon  Europe  for  its  sanc- 
tion, believing  themselves  already  sure  of  that  of  France. 
With  them  and  for  them,  under  their  banner  and  in  their 
ranks,  we  see  once  more  appear  with  the  boldness  and  re- 
joicing of  triumph  those  men  with  the  ideas  which  every- 
where arrested  the  regenerating  movement  of  1846,  those 
who  have  everywhere  sacrificed  liberty  to  revolution,  who 
have  in  all  directions  brought  about  the  return  of  absolute 
power  wherever  it  had  been  defeated,  and  even  rendered  it 
triumphant  where   it  was   till  then   unknown.     We   had 
overthrown  them  in  1848  and  1849  upon  this  very  Roman 
question.     Behold  them  once  more  believing  themselves 
masters  of  the  situation.     They  act,  they  speak,  they  lie 
the  same  as  then,  but  placing  themselves  with  ostentation 
under  the  protecting  shadow  of  France.     We  find,  once 
more,  in  their  journals,  in  their  decrees,  in  their  acts,  in 
the  orations  of  their  English  and  French  defenders,  the 
same  insults,  the  same  invectives,  the  same  violence,  the 
same  implacable  passions  as  ever,  but  with  this  cruel  ag- 
gravation, that,  instead  of  being,  as  then,  refuted  and  re- 
pressed by  the  common  effort  of  all  the  great  partisans  of 
order,  they  now  believe  they  can  rest  upon  the  victories  of 

*  Protest  of  the  Bishop  of  Orleans,  of  the  30th  September,  1859. 


i^ 


12 


PIUS    IX.  AND    PKANCB 


a  French  army  and  upon  tlie  policy  of  tlie  Imperial  Go- 
vernment. 

The  eloquent  protest  of  the  Bishop  of  Orleans  leaves 
nothing  to  be  said  upon  this  great  question  in  a  religious 
point  of  view.  We  should  but  weaken  by  repeating  them 
those  generous  accents  which  have  thrilled  in  the  heart  of 
every  Catholic  and  made  their  place  in  the  history  of  our 
time.  But  the  political  bearing  of  the  matter  surely  me- 
rits to  be  the  object  of  the  gravest  consideration.  It  must 
not  be  allowed  that  it  should  be  represented  that  this  is  a 
purely  clerical  interest  or  a  purely  religious  right.  That 
alone  would  have  much  weight,  but  there  is  another  and 
a  very  different  matter.  The  rights  of  nations  are  quite  as 
much  compromised  as  the  rights  of  the  Church.  Justice 
is  even  more  injured  than  the  Faith.  It  is  upon  this  foot- 
ing that  there  are  most  important  facts  to  state,  principles 
to  be  remembered,  astute  and  impudent  sophistry  to  be  re- 
futed, and  the  part  of  each  to  be  ascertained. 

Indeed,  it  would  be  a  rare  time  to  oflfer  a  new  apo- 
logy, after  so  many  others,  for  representative  government.* 
Every  one  feels  it,  and  many  have  even  said  that  had 
there  been  in  France  and  in  Austria  parliamentary  govern- 
ment, the  w^ar  in  Italy  would  have  been  an  impossibility. 
But  every  one  is  agreed  that  no  change  in  the  internal 
administration  can  bring  about  a  change  in  the  duties  and 
the  mission  of  France  abroad.  And  that  is  the  reason  that, 
whatever  may  be  its  form  of  government,  whatever  hands 
may  have  the  honour  to  grasp  its  banner  and  its  sword, 
every  French  heart  remains  identified  with  her  glory  and 
partaker  of  her  renown. 

Thus  it  is  with  the  actual  responsibility  of  France  in  the 
Roman  question,  and  more  especially  with  regard  to  the 
insurrection  of  Romagna,  that  we  have  more  particularly 
to  deal. 

*  See  the  admirable  letter  of  M.  le  Comte  d'Haussonville  to  the  Conseils 
Greueraux  in  the  '  Courrier  du  Dimauehe.' 


IN    1849  AND   IN    1859. 


13 


I  say,  the  responsibility  of  France,  and  not  of  the  Im- 
perial Government  only. 

When  a  government  is  founded  upon  universal  suffrage, 
when  its  chief  has  declared  himself  responsible  to  the  people, 
the  people  become  responsible  to  the  world ;  they  are  re- 
sponsible to  Europe,  to  posterity,  and  to  God  for  whatever 
that  government  does  or  permits.  France  then,  at  the  pre- 
sent time,  remains  mistress  of  her  destinies  and  responsible 
for  her  acts.  This  responsil)ility  weighs  on  every  conscience, 
at  least  on  every  conscience  which  does  not  feel  itself  re^ 
lieved  by  the  obstacles  and  protests  tolerated  by  present 
legislation.  We  have  just  been  solemnly  assured  that  the 
discussion  of  all  the  acts  of  Government  is  free.^  Let  us 
then  make  use  of  that  liberty  within  the  limits  prescribed 
by  the  law,  to  make  known  what  alarms  and  afflicts  us  in 
this  external  policy  of  France,  which,  we  repeat,  is  to  us 
inseparable  from  that  of  the  Government.  It  was  France 
which  preserved  the  temporal  independence  of  the  Holy 
See  in  1849,  and  yet  it  is  she  who  allows  it  to  be  shaken 
and  diminished  in  1859.  Behold  the  fact,  behold  the  truth, 
which  the  blind  alone  can  deny  ! 

Surely  France  is  not  alone  upon  the  path,  but  her  irre- 
sistible ascendency  forces  her  to  the  front  and  causes  the 
great  and  supreme  responsibility  to  recoil  upon  her.  We 
know  all  the  just  and  bitter  reproaches  deserved  by  Pied- 
mont and  England ;  but  if  France  had  willed  it.  Piedmont 
would  not  have  dared  to  undertake  anything  against  the 

•  •  "  The  Press  in  France  is  free  to  discuss  all  the  acts  of  the  Government, 
and  thus  enlighten  pubHc  opinion."  ('  Moniteur'  of  the  18th  September, 
1859.) 

"  It  is  because  it  is  the  duty  and  wish  of  Government  not  to  allow  the 
principle  of  authority  in  its  hands  to  be  weakened,  that  it  can  only  concede 
Hberty  of  discussion  with  the  restrictions  commanded  by  respect  for  the 
constitution,  by  the  legitimacy  of  the  imperial  dynasty,  by  the  interest  of 
order,  of  pubUc  morality,  and  of  rehgion.  Far  from  imposing  servile  appro- 
bation of  its  acts,  it  will  always  tolerate  a  substantial  opposition."  (Circu- 
ar  of  M.  le  Due  de  Padoue,  Minister  of  the  Interior,  of  the  same  day.) 


14 


PIUS   IX.  AND   FBANCE 


Holy  See,  and  England  would  have  been  thrown  back  for 
ever  into  her  impotent  hatred. 

Let  us  go  back  to  the  origin  of  the  evil,  of  the  recent,  the 
flagrant  mischief.  It  dates  more  especially  from  the  Con- 
gress of  Paris  in  1856,  of  that  diplomatic  reunion  which, 
after  having  solemnly  declared  that  none  of  the  contracting 
powers  had  the  right  to  intermeddle,  either  collectively  or 
singly,  mth  the  relations  of  a  sovereign  with  his  subjects 
(Protocol  of  the  18th  March), — after  having  proclaimed  the 
principle  of  the  absolute  independence  of  the  sovereign,  to 
the  advantage  of  the  Sultan  against  his  Christian  subjects, 
assumed  the  power,  in  its  Protocol  of  the  8th  April,  in  the 
absence  of  any  representative  of  the  august  accused,  to 
proclaim  that  the  situation  of  the  Pontifical  States  was  ab- 
normal and  irregular.  That  accusation,  extended,  aggra- 
vated, and  exaggerated  in  debate  and  elsewhere  by  Lord 
Palmerston  and  Count  Cavour,  was  none  the  less  shaped 
under  the  direction  and  upon  the  initiative  of  the  French 
Foreign  Minister,  and  consequently  it  is  France  which 
mainly  has  to  account  for  it  to  the  Church  and  to  Europe. 

We  can  recollect  the  surprise  and  grief  caused  by  this 
strange  proceeding  to  every  Catholic.  We  did  not  fail  in 
our  duty,  and  its  reception  marked  our  energetic  protest 
against  this  attempt,  so  unjustly  and  cruelly  made  against 
the  independence  of  the  Pontifical  sovereignty.^ 

We  hoped,  nevertheless,  in  common  with  all  enlightened 
friends  of  order  and  the  peace  of  Europe,  that  the  natural 
consequences  of  the  dangerous  policy  which  then  obtained 
its  first  victory  would  be  turned  aside.  That  expectation 
has  been  deceived.  The  able,  but  guilty,  perseverance  of 
Piedmontese  policy  having  succeeded  in  bringing  about  a 
rupture  between  France  and  Austria,  war,  with  all  its  perils 
and  all  the  formidable  uncertainties  it  would  let  loose, 
began  in  Italy.     Friends  and  enemies  of  the  Holy   See 

♦  *  Pius  IX.  and  Lord  Palmerston.' — See  the  '  Correspondant '  of  the 
25th  June,  1856. 


IN    1849  AND    IN    1859. 


15 


saw,  from  the  outset,  the  storm  about  to  break  over  the  Pon- 
tifical States,  and  that  anticipation  had,  no  doubt,  consi- 
derable weight  in  the  conflict  of  interested  misgivings'^  and 
passionate  encouragements  which  marked  the  Imperial  po- 
licy, which  marked  the  various  phases  between  the  remark 
to  M.  Hiibner  on  the  1  st  January,  to  the  commencement  of 
hostilities.  The  interested  misgivings  are  very  naturally 
explained  by  all  those  who  trembled  to  find  war  reopen  the 
too  frail  bandages  which  held  together  so  many  wounds 
still  bleeding  and  scarcely  scarred  over. 

However,  apprehension  was  soothed  by  the  solemn  word 
of  the  Minister  specially  charged  with  the  ministry  of  the 
State  and  the  Church,  stating,  in  the  name  of  the  Em- 
peror and  the  French  episcopacy,  "The  Prince  who  re- 
stored the  Holy  Father  to  the  Vatican  desires  that  the 
Head  of  the  Church  should  be  respected  in  all  his  rights  as 
a  temporal  monarch.^'  But  they  were  destined  to  return 
with  renewed  intensity  in  the  midst  of  the  first  flush  of 
victory,  when,  the  Austrian  columns  defeated  and  humbled, 
and  already  in  full  retreat  upon  the  Adige,  there  appeared 
the  proclamation  dated  from  Milan,  the  8th  June,  calling 
all  Italians  to  arms. 

"  Italians  !  . . .  Providence  sometimes  favours  nations  as 
"  well  as  individuals,  by  affording  them  the  opportunity  of 
"  sudden  aggrandisement,  but  upon  one  condition— that 
"  they  know  how  to  profit  by  it.  Avail  yourselves  of  the 
"  fortune  which  presents  itself.  Your  longing  for  inde- 
"  pendence— so  long  expressed,  so  often  deceived— will  be 
"  realized,  if  you  show  yourselves  deserving.  Unite,  then, 
with  a  single  aim— the  enfranchisement  of  your  country. 
Complete  your  military  organization.  Flock  to  the  ban- 
ners of  King  Victor  Emmanuel,  who  has  already  so 
"  nobly  pointed  out  the  path  of  honour.  Recollect  that 
"  without  discipline  no  army  can  exist ;  and,  inspired  by 

*  This  is  the  expression  in  the  speech  of  the  Emperor,  at  the  opening  of 
the  Legislative  Body,  the  6th  February,  1856. 


(( 


(( 


t( 


16 


Plus    IX.   AND    FRANCE 


i 


IN    1849   AND    IN    1859. 


17 


« 


i( 


"  the  sacred  love  of  country,  be  today  only  soldiers,  that 
you  may  hereafter  become  the  free  citizens  of  a  great 

country ! '' 

The  Romaguese  took  him  at  his  word.  Four  days  after 
this  proclamation  they  revolted  against  the  pontifical 
authority,  and  declared  they  would  no  longer  own  alle- 
giance to  any  but  Victor  Emmanuel.  We  know  what  rapid 
and  progressive  steps  followed  this  insurrection,  and  how — 
equally  inspired  by  the  Roman  Constituency  of  1849  and 
the  example  of  their  neighbours  in  1855— they  in  succes- 
sion created  a  Provisional  Government,  convoked  a  sove- 
reign Assembly,  voted  the  dethronement  of  the  Pope,  then 
the  annexation  to  Piedmont ;  how,  ultimately  finding  their 
boldest  steps  met  with  impuiuty,  they  organized  an  armed 
League,  under  Piedmontese  officers  and  the  command  of 
Garibaldi— the  same  Garibaldi  who,  conquered  by  our  sol- 
diers at  Rome  ten  years  since,  now  strives,  by  our  recent 
and  bloody  victories,  to  make  an  end,  according  to  one  of 
his  latest  orations,  of  clerical  despotism, 

A  single  French  battalion  despatched  from  Rome  to 
Bologna  immediately  after  the  departure  of  the  Austrians, 
and  more  particularly  after  the  preliminaries  at  Villafranca, 
would  most  assuredly  have  sufficed  to  have  kept  down  this 
flagrant  violation  of  the  public  law  of  Christendom.  All 
the  motives  which  in  1849  were  in  favour  of  the  expedition 
to  Rome,  were  equally  in  existence  in  1859  for  the  occupa- 
tion of  Bologna ;  but  with  this  material  diflerence— that 
none  of  the  grave  obstacles  which  then  had  to  be  sur- 
mounted, either  externally  or  internally,  stood  in  the  way 
of  French  mediation  or  protection.  Even  now,  although 
the  position  has  been  undoubtedly  aggravated  by  three 
months'  uncertainty  and  impunity —even  now  a  word,  a 
sint'le  word,  pronounced  in  the  name  of  France,  would  put 
an  end  to  this  disorder. 

But  this  word  is  not  spoken,  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
speech  of  the  Emperor  to  the  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux; 


and  Revolution,  triumphant,  already  demands  that  Europe 
shall  sanction  her  work.     We  ought  to  hope,  and  even  to 
the  last  moment  we  will  hope,  that  this  silence  will  have 
an  end.     But  when  it  is  thoroughly  shown  that  all  hope 
is  at  an  end,  and  every  illusion  impossible,  France  must  be 
taught  that  she  can  only  attribute  to  herself  all  the  cala- 
mities and  scandals  which  may  follow.     Great  nations — 
and  this  can  hardly  be  too  often  repeated — are  responsible 
not  only  for  what  they  do,  but  for  what  they  sufier  to  be 
done  under  the  shelter  of  their  flag  and  the  provocation 
of  their  influence.     Once  again,  it  is  this  war  carried  by 
France  into  Italy  that  will   have  brought  about  the  de- 
struction of  the  temporal  authority  of  the  Pope  in  a  third 
of  his  territories,  and  the  irreparable  disorder  of  the  re- 
mainder.    The  eldest  daughter  of  the  Church  will  remain 
accountable  for  it  to  the  present  as  to  history,  to  Europe 
as  to  God.     She  will  not  be  allowed  to  pretend  innocence, 
and  to  wipe  her  mouth  like  the  adulteress  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, quce  tergens  os  suum  dicitj  non  sum  operata  malum. 

But  it  may  be  said,  do  you  pretend  that  France,  or  any 
other  Catholic  power,  is  obliged  to  fly  to  the  succour  of  the 
Holy  Father,  and  to  replace  him  in  the  exercise  of  his 
authority  unconditionally  ?  Has  she  not,  on  the  contrary, 
the  right  to  say  to  the  Pope,  If  you  wish  me  to  replace 
you  in  Bologna  and  to  continue  to  defend  Rome,  follow  my 
advice,  or  else  get  out  of  the  matter  without  me  ? 

I  reply  without  equivocation  to  that  objection  :  Yes, 
that  language  would  be  possible,  and  up  to  a  certain  point 
legitimate,  if,  in  the  first  place,  the  insurrection  of  Bologna 
had  been  totally  independent  of  French  policy,  and  had  not 
been  the  immediate  result  of  the  war  in  Italy;  if,  more- 
over, the  French  Government  had  not  pledged  itself  pub- 
licly and  solemnly  to  guarantee  the  Pope  against  all  conse- 
quences of  the  war.  But  in  passing  the  Alps  to  change  at 
the  sword's  point  the  political  condition  of  Italy,  the  Em- 
pire became  responsible  for  all  these  changes,  whatever  they 


B 


\ 


18 


PIUS    IX.    AND    FRANCE 


might  be.  It  is  entitled  to  boast  of  whatever  is  good  and 
durable ;  it  is  bound  to  prevent  or  repair  whatever  misfor- 
tune it  may  entail.  Thus,  the  Republic  of  1848,  from  the 
very  moment  it  was  directed  by  men  of  sense  and  ho- 
nesty, understood  instinctively  that  it  had  more  special 
and  imperious  obligations  towards  the  Papacy  than  the 
France  of  Louis  Philii)pe.  And  why  ?  Because  it  was  the 
Revolution  of  February,  and  the  overthrow  of  constitu- 
tional  royalty,  which  had  led  in  Rome  to  explosion  and 
revolt  and  to  the  ingratitude  towards  the  Pontiff,  the 
author  of  the  amnesty  and  the  Constitutional  Statute. 

Moreover,  international  law  imposes  upon  civilized  belli- 
gerent powers  special  obligations  with  regard  to  neutral 
powers.  It  is  unheard  of,  it  is  against  all  sense,  that 
neutrals  should  be  the  victims  of  the  policy  of  the  belli- 
gerents. As  the  Pope  was  neuter  in  the  last  war,  he 
caiHiot  be  asked  to  fill  another  position ;  that  was  the  only 
one  at  once  suited  to  his  dignity,  his  heart,  his  mission. 
Did  he  conscientiously  fulfil  tliat  position  ?  No  one  can 
deny  it.  He  observed  the  most  perfect,  the  most  impartial 
neutrality ;  he  showed  it  most  substantially  by  protesting 
against  the  extension  of  the  Austrian  lines  at  Ancona. 
And  what  is  his  reward  ?  It  is  delivering  him  defenceless 
to  his  enemies,  who  falsely  attribute  to  him  as  a  public 
wrong  his  alliance  with  Austria."*^ 

But  England  !  but  Piedmont !  These  arc,  according  to 
some  persons,  the  real,  the  great,  the  principal  criminals. 
I  believe  nothing  of  the  kind. 

As  for  England,  I  admit  without  difficulty  all  the  accu- 
sations alleged  against  her  for  the  part  she  has  played  in 
Italy.  More  than  once  I  have  thought  it  right  to  express 
in  these  pages  the  embarrassment  and  the  annoyance  one 
feels  in  speaking  the  truth  on  the  faults  and  vices  of  Eng- 
land, for  fear  of  being  confounded  (at  a  period  when  the 

*  See  the  memorandum   of  M.  Leonello  Cipriani,  Governor-general  of 
Romagna,  the  3rd  October,  1859, 


IN    1849  AND   IN    1859. 


19 


art  of  confounding  is  very  willingly  practised)  with  her 
stupid  and  brawling  detractors,   who  attack  in  her  only 
liberty,  dignity,   and   political   vitality,   and   who   believe 
they  defend  Catholicism  by  maintaining  that  people  are 
more  happy,  more  proud,  and  more  free  in  Naples  than  in 
London,  simply  because   they  work  less   at   the  foot   of 
Mount  Vesuvius  than  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames  !     But 
one  has  less  pain  in  overcoming  this  embarrassment  and 
this  annoyance  when  he  is,  what  I  am,  and  when  he  re- 
mains, the  sincere  friend  and  passionati^  admirer — I  have 
perhaps  the  right  to  say  the  well-known  confessor— ofihe; 
manly  virtues  and  glorious  institutions  which  have  placed 
England  in  the  high  position  she  occupies.     She  must  take 
care  not  to  fall  from  that  height. 

She  will  assuredly  not  long  remain  on  it  if  she  continue 
to  follow  in  the  affairs  of  Europe  the  tortuous  and  immoral 
policy  which  characterizes  her  attempts  at  action  in  Italy : 
—first  doing  her  utmost  to  prevent  the  war ;  taking,  when 
war  is  once  declared,  no  part  direct  or  indirect  in  it ;  but  the 
moment  peace  is  made,  intervening  with  an  arrogance  and  a 
persistence  which  the  noblest  sacrifices  on  her  part  would 
hardly  justify;    intervening  in  order  to  envenom  all  the 
difficulties  and  to  increase  all  the  dangers,— ^c^  a  part  has 
but  one  name— it  is  ignoble !     It  is  true  that  between  the 
sensible  and  honourable  despatches  of  Lord  Malmesbury  be- 
fore the  opening  of  the  war,  and  the  recent  harangue  of  Lord 
John  Russell  at  Aberdeen,  a  change  of  Ministry  took  place. 
Twenty-one  Catholic  members  for  Ireland,  disposing  of  the 
majority  in  a  new  Parliament,,  had,  at   the  most  critical 
moment  for  the  Papacy,  the'clever  notion  of  transferring 
the  power  from  the  hands  of  Lord  Derby  and  a  Ministry 
essentially   conservative,   moderate,   and   full   of  goodwill 
towards  the  Catholics,  to  those  of  Lord  Palmerston,  whom 
every  one   knows,  and    Lord   John  Russell,   who  distin- 
guished himself  among  all  the  statesmen  of  England  by 
the  violence  of  his  invectives  against  the  religion  which  is 

B  2 


20 


Vim  I3L  mm  tiiANCB 


IN    1849  AND    IN    1859. 


21 


ilf 


professed  by  150  millions  of  Christians  and  10  millions 
of  British  subjects;  and  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  who,  I  regret 
to  say,  placed  himself  by  his  last  tirade  against  Pius  IX. 
on  a  level  with  Lord  John.  But,  as  has  been  already  ob- 
served with  respect  to  France,  .nations  are,  and  continue  to 
be,  participators  of  the  foreign  policy  of  their  Governments. 
Whatever  be  the  changes  that  have  occurred  in  the  English 
Ministry,  all  England  bears,  and  will  bear,  the  moral  re- 
sponsibility of  the  subterfuges,  the  perfidy,  and  the  vio- 
lence of  her  leaders.  England  is  alarmed  at  her  isolated 
and  menaced  condition  in  contemporaneous  Europe.  She 
has  reason  for  her  alarm.  In  spite  of  the  heroism  displayed 
by  her  children  against  the  insurgents  of  India,  she  feels 
instinctively  that  the  days  of  Nelson  and  of  Wellington,  of 
Burke  and  of  Chatham,  have  passed  away,  and  she  deplores 
it.  She  would  do  better  to  deplore  the  gradual  destruc- 
tion of  public  and  social  spirit  which  produced  her  great 
men.  But  a  day  will  come,  perhaps  soon,  but  ever  too  soon 
for  the  friends  of  liberty  and  civilization,  when  she  will  find 
what  matchless  folly  she  has  committed  in  arraying  against 
her,  with  all  the  animosities,  all  the  rancour,  all  the  jea- 
lousy which  she  excites,  and  which  she  aggravates  every  day, 
the  just  resentment  and  the  filial  anguish  of  100,000,000 
of  Catholics. 

Meanwhile  it  is  not  in  Italy  that  her  destinies  will  be 
decided,  and  she  will  never  exercise  a  decisive  action  upon 
the  destinies  of  Italy.  Moreover  she  is  not  a  Catholic 
Power;  she  has  no  exceptional  obligation  to,  no  direct  en- 
gagement with  the  Holy  Sge.  Her  part  is  dangerous  and 
culpable ;  but  it  is  only  subordinate. 

As  to  Piedmont,  there  is  too  much  to  be  said.  Enough 
is  known  of  what  we  think  of  her.  Full  of  sympathy  for 
the  great  and  noble  mission  which  Charlgg  Albert  assigned 
to  his  house  and  people  by  the  establishment  of  a  liberal 
and  enlightened  government  in  upper  Italy,  we  have  seen 
with  bitter  regret  that  noble  country  exchange  its  patient 


and  laborious  task,  so  fruitful  and  so  pure,  as  a  moral  and 
intellectual  guide,  for  that  of  a  greedy  and  impatient  adven- 
turer who  grasps  at  everything,  and  who,  instead  of  heed- 
ing or  respecting  transmitted  or  acquired  rights,  blindly 
and  obstinately  attacks  the  greatest  moral  power  in  Italy 
and  the  world.     Even  while  rendering  justice  to  the  mili- 
tary virtues  of  the  King  Victor  Emmanuel,  who  offers  the 
spectacle,  so  rare  among  the  sovereigns  of  olden  stock,  of  a 
man  and  a  soldier  on  the  throne,  we  have  groaned  with 
every  true  friend  of  Italy  and  of  Piedmont  at  this  syste- 
matic war  she  has  waged  against  the  Church  in  despite 
of  the  express  wish  of  the  King  Charles  Albert,  of  the  pro- 
tests of  Caesar  Balbo,  and  its  best  advisers.     We  have  felt 
indignant  at  the  detestable  example  set  by  this  constitu- 
tional country,  in  declaring  that  the  guarantees  of  a  re- 
presentative regime  were  incompatible  with  war, — in  hand- 
ing over  to  dictatorship  the  task  of  inaugurating  the  con- 
quests of  liberty,— in  maintaining  even  after  peace  that  ar- 
bitrary despotism  hardly  known  in  Russia  itself,  and  which 
does  not  tolerate  the  expression  of  a  single  idea  contrary  to 
the  ruling  passion."^     But  after  all,  Piedmont,  which  could 
do  nothing  against  Austria  without  France,  could  do  no- 
thing against  the  Holy  See  unless  France  sanctioned  it. 

»  To  relieve  the  reader  for  a  moment  in  the  midst  of  these  sad  details,  we 
will  submit  to  him  the  following  extract  from  the  '  Siecle '  of  the  16th  Oc- 
tober,  as  a  further  proof  of  the  enlightened  regard  of  all  the  French  and 
Italian  revolutionists  to  really  Uberal  institutions  : 

"  Turin,  IBth  October. 

"  You  know  that  the  Ministry  has  taken  the  responsibihty  of  a  great  de- 
termination, that  of  reforming  all  the  legislation  of  the  ancient  States  of  the 
King  of  Sardinia,  and  of  adapting  it  with  aU  necessary  alterations  to  the 
annexed  provinces  of  Lombardy  before  the  re-assembling  of  the  Chambers. 

"Just  now  they  are  bestowing  much  labour  upon  this  vast  enterprise, 
and  they  are  casting  aU  in  the  same  crucible :  codes,  electoral  laws,  depart- 
mental laws,  comm^onal  laws,  the  organization  of  the  Council  of  State  and 
of  the  Court  of  Accounts,  of  the  admmistration,  of  the  Customs,  of  mines, 
of  public  works,  of  forest  laws,  of  judicial  organization,  of  the  organic  laws 
of  public  instruction  and  financial  organization,  all  will  come  out  of  the 


r^ 


\ 


22 


PIUS    IX.    AND    FRANCE 


The  question  remains,  then,  entirely  concentrated  be- 
tween France,  the  Holy  See,  and  the  insurrection  of  Ro- 
magna ;  for,  if  it  be  shown  that  France  is  in  conscience 
and  in  honour  bound  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  pa- 
trimony of  the  Holy  See,  we  are  not  among  those  who  will 
ever  admit  that  Europe  can  prevent  France  from  doing  her 
duty.  "  Europe  cannot  permit, ^^  we  are  told,  "  the  French 
occupation  to  be  prolonged J^^  Ah  !  if  such  an  expression 
had  been  uttered  under  Louis  Philippe,  or  by  him,  what 
clamours  would  not  have  resounded  throughout  the  whole 
democratic  and  revolutionary  camp !  Nowadays  people  do 
not  limit  themselves  to  a  tacit  assent,  they  applaud  vocife- 
rously. It  is  true  that  the  question  is  not  to  permit 
France  to  defend  the  Pope ;  and  so,  in  the  eyes  of  these 
proud  patriots,  of  these  intrepid  champions  of  liberal  pro- 
gress, all  is  well  and  all  is  legitimate. 

Let  us  consider  Romagna  detached  from  the  patrimony 
of  the  Church.  After  all,  we  are  told,  that  patrimony  will 
only  be  reduced  a  third,  and  the  Treaty  of  Tolentino  took 
away  even  more,  without  the  Pope,  for  all  that,  ceasing 
to  be  a  temporal  prince.     What  an  epoch  and  what  an  ex- 

same  mouldy  all  will  flow  from  the  same  source,  and  these  laws  will  bear  the 
impress  of  the  period  of  the  national  mind  which  dictates  them,  and  of 
the  most  admirable  unity. 

"  I  can  assure  you  that  tli©  country  is  much  pleased  with  the  courage  of 
its  Government,  and  that  no  one  in  Piedmont  or  in  Italy  dreams  of  making 
a  grievance  of  the  wish  to  explain  the  liberal  principles  of  the  constitution 
harmoniously  in  all  branches  of  legislation,  political,  civil,  commercial,  ad- 
ministrative, etc.  etc.,  by  saving  it  from  the  contradictions^  the  meddling^ 
the  infinite  delay  Sy  of  the  suggestions  which  would  arise  aut  of  parliamentary 
discussions. 

"  Is  it  intended  to  say  that  the  Italians  do  not  care  for  parliamentary 
rule,  although  well  governed  ?  On  the  conteaby,  they  love  this  rule ;  they 
are  exceedingly  jealous  of  it ;  for  to  this  they  are  indebted  for  the  develop- 
ment of  their  liberty,  for  the  height  to  which  they  have  raised  the  national 
flag,  and  for  the  moral  conquests  which  Piedmont  has  just  made  in  Italy. 
Moreover,  the  initiative  taken  by  the  Government  in  nowise  restricts  the 
constitutional  right  of  Parliament." 

*  Words  spoken  by  the  Emperor  on  his  late  visit  to  Bordeaux. 


IN    1849   AND   IN    1859. 


23 


ample  to  cite  !    I  do  not  doubt  that  that  treaty  was  accursed 
by  all  who,  in  1797,  preserved  Catholic  hearts.    Moreover, 
did  the  cession  of  Ferrara,  of  Ravenna,  and  Bologna,  save 
Rome?     Did  it  save  Pius  VI.  from  dying  at  Valencia, 
Pius  VII.  from  being  dragged  in  captivity  to  Savona  and 
to  Fontainebleau  ?     Has  not  dismemberment  still  brought 
about  dismemberment?     Moreover,  what  a  difference  be- 
tween the  situation  and  the  consequences  which  accompanied 
the  present  and  the  past  dismemberment !     The  Treaty  of 
Tolentino  was  the  effect  of  a  victorious  revolution ;  it  was 
imposed  by  an  avowed  enemy,  not  by  the  hand  of  friendship; 
by  a  nation  which  professed  and  practised  war  on  religion 
and  monarchs,  not  by  a  protecting  power  become,  thank 
Heaven,  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Church.     Moreover,  it 
was  the  fortune  of  war,  the  right  of  might,  the  ancient 
custom  of  conquerors.     We  admit  and  accept  that  position. 
Now  it  is  very  different :  it  is  not  the  right  of  might,  it  is  a 
new  principle  sought  to  be  inaugurated, — the  principle  that 
abuses,  more  or  less  proved  against  a  government,  render 
its  continuation  illegal ;  and,  moreover,  that  ecclesiastical 
sovereignty  is  incompatible  with  modern  civilization.     It 
is  a  principle  which  applies  equally  to  what  is  left  and  to 
what  is  taken  away.      It  is  a  theory  that,  once  sanctioned, 
will  become  irresistible,  and  of  which  no  one  could  arrest 
the  contagion.     Already  Bologna  appeals  to  Umbria  and 
the  Marches,   and  its  deputies  have  recommended  it  to 
the  touching  solicitude  of  the  King  of  Sardinia.     Florence 
tomorrow  will  appeal  to  Perugia  already  ensanguined  by 
its  emissaries.    What  reason  could  be  alleged  to  the  people 
of  Ancona,  of  Spoleto,  of  Fermo,  of  Foligno,  to  induce 
them  to  submit  to  a  yoke  recognized  as  intolerable  from 
Ravenna  to  Rimini  ?     Let  us  see.     What  ?     I  defy  any 
one  to  find  one  which  has  even  the  semblance  of  plausibility. 
It  has  been  insultingly  said.  You  must  leave  the  Pope  the 
Vatican  and  a   garden.      Why   the  garden,  if  it  be   in- 
habited by  men,  by  Italians,  to  whom  we  have  conceded 


\ 


m 


24 


PIUS    IJC.    AND   FEANCJB 


that  their  human  and  national  dimity  is  outraged  by  the 
Pontifical  domination  ?  Why  should  Rome  be  thus  placed 
out  of  the  pale  of  the  law  ?  And  since  1859  places  trium- 
phant at  Bologna  the  pretended  right  which  1849  de- 
throned in  Rome,  why  should  not  Rome  take  back  that 
right  in  triumph  ? 

It  is  not  a  question  of  measuring  the  extent  of  the  terri- 
tory given  or  left  to  the  Pope,  it  is  the  very  foundation  of 
his  temporal  principality  that  is  being  undermined.  It  is 
not  a  reform,  either  asked  or  sanctioned,  it  is  the  general 
and  permanent  right  of  insurrection,  that  we  are  asked  to 
sanction  also  against  him.  Behold  the  true,  the  only 
ground  of  the  discussion  ? 

To  speak  to  the  modern  world,  to  the  political  and  in- 
tellectual powers  that  govern  it,  the  language  of  interest,  or 
of  an  exclusively  Catholic  right,  on  a  political  question,  is 
an  ungrateful  and  often  a  useless  task.  We  can  neither 
touch  nor  convince  those  who  do  not  admit  even  the  lead- 
ing point  of  their  contradictor,  and  who  ignore  or  reject  all 
the  bases  which  he  gives  to  his  conviction.  If  we  desire  to 
escape  the  only  arguments  which  affect  the  crowd,  the  sad 
necessity  of  invoking  or  of  undergoing  by  turns  the  brutal 
arguments  of  the  strongest,  we  are  necessarily  led  to  seek  a 
region  where  we  can  treat  with  those  who  partake  neither 
our  belief  nor  our  affections.  We  must  invite  them  to 
follow  us,  or  we  must  precede  them  on  ground  where  they 
shall  encounter  only  those  great  laws  of  justice,  morality, 
and  honour  which  every  honest  man,  every  man  of  honour, 
h  bound  to  respect  and  to  proclaim.  We  must  rise  with  them 
to  those  principles  of  natural  equity  which  a  young  and  sin- 
cere Republican  has  so  well  named  the  ''right  of  pay*  ties.' ^ 
These  principles  we  must  not  only  profess  when  vanquished 
and  in  a  minority ;  we  must  know  how  to  maintain  them 
and  avow  them,  especially  when  we  are  the  strongest.  We 
never  have  been  and  we  do  not  desire  to  be  the  strongest ; 
but  we  hold  invincibly  to  employing  only  those  arguments 


IN    1849   AND    IN    1859. 


25 


whicli  we  may  never  have  to  disavow,  and  which  may  be  of 
use  to  us  in  either  condition. 

The  question  is  by  no  means  to  break  with  modern  so- 
ciety. The  question  is  not  to  deny  or  criticize  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  civil  power,  the  essential  distinction  be- 
tween the  spiritual  and  temporal  which  serves  as  the  basis 
of  the  social  organization  of  Europe.  The  question  merely 
is  to  know  if  that  principle  is  so  absolute  as  to  make  it 
triumph  everywhere,  always,  and  to  the  disregard  of  every 
other  principle  and  every  other  right ;  if  that  object  is  so 
sacred  that  it  has  to  be  attained  by  every  means,  even  by 
those  reproved  by  justice  and  by  honour,  the  question  is 
to  argue  upon  the  conditions  which  may  permit  a  people  to 
change  and  to  overthrow  their  Government.  We  have  never 
thought  that  it  was  necessary  to  profess  the  dogma  of  the 
inamissibility  of  power,  to  believe  in  the  exclusive  rights 
of  princes  over  peoples,  to  regard  the  destiny  of  nations  as 
indissolubly  bound  to  certain  races  or  to  a  certain  order  of 
succession. 

It  may  be,  on  the  contrary,  asserted,  and  for  my  part  I 
have  ever  professed  the  doctrine,  that  the  majority  of  the 
states  of  modern  Europe,  Sweden,  England,  Portugal,  Hol- 
land, Belgium,  Greece,  have  consecrated  by  their  example 
that  of  national  sovereignty  and  the  consent  of  the  people 
to  the  Government  which  rules  them.  But  there  is  a  wide 
distinction  between  that  and  admitting,  with  the  revolu- 
tionists, that  this  consent,  once  directly  or  by  implication 
given,  can  be  constantly  brought  into  question  or  with- 
drawn without  the  gravest  motives;  that  all  the  States  in 
the  world  should  be  without  exception  cast  in  the  same 
mould ;  and  to  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  a  people  may 
have  the  right  of  changing  its  Government  as  often  as  it 
may  think  fit,  and  that  every  insurrection  must  be  legi- 
timate, simply  because  it  is  an  insurrection. 

Let  us  abandon  theory  for  practice,  and  Tet  us  address 
ourselves  to  all  the  non- revolutionary  Liberals.    I  comprise 


\ 


26 


PITO   II.    AND    FRANCB 


IN    1849  AND    IN    1859. 


27 


under  this  denomination  all  those  who  deplore  the  conse- 
quences of  the  revolution  of  February,  1848.     They  saw  a 
Government  which,  in  spite  of  all  its  wrongs  (towards  us 
particularly),  was  essentially  honest  and  moderate,  which 
had  never  violated  a  single  law,  or  furnished  the  least  pre- 
text for  an  armed  insurrection ;  they  saw  it  gradually  un- 
dermined by  calumny  and  crumble  under  the  blows  of  a 
riot.     They  have  seen  how  a  legal  opposition,  sincere  and 
loyal  on  the  part  of  most  of  its  members,  could  be  turned  to 
account  and  abused  by  passions  which  they  did  not  share. 
They  have  seen  lastly  how  that  riot,  suddenly  transformed 
into  a  revolution,  had  been,  on  the  morrow  of  its  triumph, 
crowned  apparently  by  the  unanimous  decision  of  a  startled 
nation,  faithless  to  its  rights  as  to  its  duties,  and  passively 
borne  along  by  contagion  and  fear.     After  such  a  lesson, 
how  can  they  believe  that  insurrections  are  legitimate  ?  and 
how  is  it  thev  have  not  learned  to  distrust  these  so-called 
national  manifestations  provoked  by  Provisional  Govern- 
ments and  sanctioned  by  appeals  to  universal  suffrage? 

Let  them  recollect  their  own  sentiments  the  day  after 
the  catastrophe  !  Let  them  recall  the  repugnance  of  their 
conscience,  their  reason,  their  hearts  against  the  blind  tri- 
umphs of  force,  against  the  servile  enthusiasm  of  the  mob, 
and  that  they  no  longer  come  from  the  height  of  their  in- 
difference or  the  depth  of  their  moral  complicity,  with  any 
conquerors  whatever,  to  reproach  us  when  the  sentiment  of 
filial  grief  bursts  from  our  hearts,  for  not  preserving  the 
perfect  equilibrium  and  the  gentle  calm  of  the  worshipers 
of  victory. 

No,  no,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  recognize  that  a  people  has 
the  right  to  have  a  will,  and  to  express  it ;  it  is  further 
requisite  that  such  people  should  be  in  the  right,  that  its 
desire  should  be  just,  and  that  its  expression  should  be  jus- 
tified by  necessity  or  social  utility  :  otherwise  we  fall  back 
upon  the  savage  dogma  of  Rousseau — it  is  unnecessary  for 
the  people  to  be  in  the  right. 


Have  the  people  of  Romagna  any  reason  to  revolt  against 
the  pontifical  dominion  ?  We  there  have  the  whole  question 
on  their  part  and  on  ours.  .  Had  that  insurrection  sufficient 
foundation,  in  right  and  in  fact,  so  that  France,  whose  po- 
licy and  victories  furnished  the  pretext  and  opportunity  of 
revolt,  is  bound  to  allow  it  to  triumph,  in  despite  of  another 
title  founded  upon  every  rule  of  good  faith  and  diplomacy, 
justified  by  the  soundest  political  reasons,  and  consecrated 
by  the  most  secular  traditions  of  our  history  ? 

I  ask  of  God  the  grace  of  being  able  to  set  aside  all 
false  and  exaggerated  arguments.  My  experience  in  public 
debates  has  taught  me  that  a  bad  argument  employed  by  a 
friend  does  ten  times  more  injury  to  the  cause  which  this 
friend  wishes  to  support,  than  the  best  arguments  employed 
by  its  adversaries.  I  will  not  therefore  say  that  the  tem- 
poral institutions  of  the  Roman  States  are  superior  to  all 
modern  institutions,  or  that  the  general  well-being  of  the 
Pope's  subjects  is  far  superior  or  equal  to  that  of  aU  people 
in  the  world.  Even  at  Rome,  where  we  have  always  ob- 
served much  prudence  and  moderation  in  political  conside- 
rations, such  amplifications  would  raise  a  smile. 

Are  matters  worse  at  Rome  than  elsewhere  ?  That  is 
the  whole  question.  Are  they  in  so  bad  a  condition  that 
the  sovereign  should  be  overthrown  by  the  efforts  of  the 
people  in  revolt,  excited  by  Piedmont,  guaranteed  against 
all  repression  by  France,  and  absolved  in  anticipation  by 
Europe  ? 

That  would  certainly  be  strange  reaction  here  below. 
The  most  inoffensive  of  all  monarchies,  the  only  one  which 
for  three  centuries  has  never  encroached  upon  its  neigh- 
bours, never  disturbed  Europe  by  its  claims,  never  alarmed 
or  injured  any  one, — against  which  not  a  single  State,  near 
or  distant,  has  the  slightest  complaint  to  make, — is  to  be 
put  out  of  the  pale  of  international  law  ! 

"  The  Popes,''  says  M.  de  Maistre,  "  may  have  asserted 
too  strongly  in  other  days  the  universal  suzerainty  which  a 


\ 


aO 


Fret  «•  mD    FRANCE 


not  less  universal  opinion  did  not  deny  them.  They  may, 
if  you  will,  have  exacted  homage  and  have  imposed  taxes 
too  arbitrarily,  etc.,  but  it  has  ever  been  admitted  that  they 
nevei?  sought  to  seize  an  opportunity  of  augmenting  their 
States  at  the  cost  of  justice ;  while  no  other  sovereign  has 
escaped  from  that  reproach,  and  at  the  present  moment, 
with  all  our  philosophy,  our  civilization,  and  our  splendid 
books,  there  is  hardly  a  European  power  able  to  justify  all 
its  possessions  before  God  or  before  reason/' 

This  comparison,  wonderfully  truthful  in  all  that  relates 
to  the  monarchies,  is  none  the  less  applicable  to  the  mon- 
arehs.  I  never  flattered  any  one,  not  even  the  unfortu- 
nate, not  even  the  noble  anguish  of  the  exile.  I  will  even 
say,  by  the  way,  this  puerile  adidation,*this  frivolous  en- 
thusiasm which  is  now  found  to  exist  in  so  many  religious 
writers  whenever  a  pontiff  or  a  prince  of  the  Church  is 
the  subject,  is  profoundly  repulsive  to  me ;  I  do  not  find 
the  least  trace  of  it  in  the  great  eras  of  the  Faith,  in  the 
great  literature  of  the  Fathers  and  the  Saints.  I  will  re- 
frain then,  as  from  an  insult  or  a  blunder,  from  all  flattery 
of  Pius  IX.  But  the  strictest  justice  compels  us  to  ac- 
knowledge that  the  Pope,  whose  yoke  the  Romagnese  pro- 
nounce iusupportal)le,  does  not  yield  the  palm  of  virtue  to 
either  of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe,  and  that,  after  having 
been  the  most  popular  prince  of  his  time,  he  has  remained 
tlie  most  irreproachable  one. 

What  oath  has  he  violated?  What  constitution  has  he 
abolislied?  What  blood  has  he  shed?  What  property 
has  he  confiscated?  What  snare  has  .he  laid?  What 
falsehood  has  he  uttered?*  Whom  on  earth  has  he  de- 
ceived or  persecuted?  He  amnestied  without  exception 
all  the  old  enemies  of  the  Holy  See;  they  repaid  him  by 

*  We  remember  the  noble  words  of  Cardinal  Consalvi,  premier  of  Pius 
VII.: — "  A  lying  existence  is  the  habitual  life  of  courts.  But  a  lie  in  Rome 
would  ruin  an  entire  reign.  Another  Pope  would  be  an  immediate  neces- 
sit J. ^'—Ariaud,  History  of  Leo  XJI.,  toI.  i.  p.  167. 


i 

i 


IN    1849   AND    IN    1859. 


29 


dethroning  him  for  the  first  time.  What  liberty  has  he 
destroyed  ?  He  had  granted  all  to  his  people  with  a  libe- 
rality which  we  must  not  cease  to  bless,  though  it  ap- 
peared imprudent  to  many.  They  made  use  of  it  to  as- 
sassinate his  minister,  to  besiege  him  in  his  palace,  to  force 
him  into  flight,  to  declare  him  deposed  from  his  throne. 
Finally,  what  baseness  has  he  committed  ?  He  is  the  only 
sovereign  in  Europe  who  has  seen  his  capital  occupied  for 
ten  years  by  friendly  but  foreign  troops ;  therefore  I  ask  of 
the  most  fastidious  and  the  most  disdainful,  what  prince 
has  maintained,  during  these  ten  years,  an  attitude  more 
noble,  more  calm,  and  more  dignified  ? 

Of  all  the  wrongs  charged  by  the  Italians  against  other 
princes,  can  a  single  one,  with  even  the  shadow  of  justice, 
be  imputed  to  Pius  IX.?  Not  one.  Is  he  a  tyrant? 
No.  Not  one  among  the  most  inveterate  of  his  adver- 
saries dare  to  assert  it.  Has  he  taken  flight  ?  No.  Is 
he  a  usurper  ?  No.  Is  he  a  foreigner?  No.  He  is  the 
most  Italian,  the  only  one  who  is  thoroughly  Italian, 
among  the  princes  of  the  Peninsula;  how  much  more 
Italian,  by  descent  at  least,  than  this  House  of  Savoy,  which 
plunders  him  in  the  name  of  Italy  !  Some  have  ventured 
to  talk  of  his  Austrian  sympathies ;  at  least  it  must  be 
admitted  that  if  he  possessed  them,  strange  means  have 
been  adopted  to  convert  him.  But  is  there  any  proof  of 
these  sympathies  ?  -  After  having,  as  far  as  he  could,  aided 
the  Italian  movement  of  1847  j  after  having  even  exhorted 
Austria  to  withdraw  from  Italy,  he  declined  declaring  war 
against  her  in  spite  of  the  endeavours  of  Father  Ven- 
tura  and  other  courtiers  of  force  and  popularity;  and 
he  was  most  thoroui^hly  right,  for  to  have  done  so  would 
have  been  a  breach  of  his  duty  as  father  to  all  the  faithful. 

In  1859,  his  neutrality  only  was  demanded,  and  he  ob- 
served that  neutrality  most  rigorously.  But  he  himself, 
by  an  inspiration  of  honour  and  pride  worthy  of  another 
age,  had  demanded  that  the  French  and  Austrian  troops 


\ 


30 


PIUS    IX.   AND    FRANC! 


IN    1849   AND   IN    1859. 


31 


M 


should  simultaneously  quit  his  territories;  and  that  was 
before  war  was  declared,  and  before  the  people  had  been 
driven  into  revolution. 

Finally,  what  is  his  crime  ?.  He  has  one,  only  one,— he 
is  a  priest.  That  sums  all.  These  proud  inhabitants  of 
Roma^a,  so  docile  and  submissive  to  the  House  of  Este, 
and  to  I  know  not  how  many  other  petty  tyrants  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  these  dauntless  patriots  who  invoke  so 
proudly  the  recent  souvenirs  of  the  Italian  kingdom,  cre- 
ated, inspired,  and  governed  by  a  foreign  Power,  will  no 
longer  obey  the  oldest,  the  most  venerable,  and  the  most 
Italian  sovereignty  of  Europe,  because  that  sovereign  is  a 
priest.  This  is  their  idea,  their  fantasy,  their  mode  of 
understanding  the  rights  of  man  and  of  the  people.  And 
they  find  an  echo  and  support,  throughout  Europe,  in  all 
those  revolutionizers  who  in  1848  and  1849  were  van- 
quished and  repressed,  and  who  long  that,  as  their  first 
revenge,  this  priestly  supremacy  should  be  dethroned  and 
reduced  from  sovereign  rank  to  that  of  a  subject  or  a 
slave. 

But  since  when  has  it  sufficed,  to  acquire  the  right  of 
rising  in  insurrection,  of  upsetting  their  own  country  and 
Europe,  that  they  are  not  governed  to  their  fancy,  and  to 
follow  as  their  sole  guide  their  preferences  or  discontents  ? 

Do  the  inhabitants  of  Romagna  imagine  forsooth  that 
thev  are  the  sole  malcontents  in  the  world  ?  Who  is  not 
acquainted  with  a  number  of  persons  as  discontented  as 
any  Bolognese  whatever?  But  in  what  state  would  Eu- 
rope be  if  every  malcontent  followed  their  example  ? 

To  admit  such  a  social  right,  to  recognize  it,  to  allow  it 
to  be  asserted  with  impunity,  would  be  to  inaugurate  the 
reign  of  disorder  and  demoralization ;  it  would  be  to  con- 
demn Europe  to  the  fate  of  Central  America,  where  every 
fortnight  gives  birth  to  a  new  government ;  where  every 
General  who  can  collect  a  following  of  1,500  men,  and 
invent  or  warm  up  a  programme  of  opposition,  aspires 


.  ■ « 


successfully  to  demolish  and  replace  the  government  of 
his  country.  It  is  for  such  selfish  follies,  for  such  unruly 
caprices,  and  such  criminal  and  homicidal  recklessness, 
that  God  prepares  the  most  bitter  and  merited  disappoint- 
ment. It  is  for  them  that  he  reserves  the  most  cruel  and 
degrading  punishment  for  a  civilized  nation,  the  despotism 
of  the  sword. 

Democracy,  revolution,  even  when  successful,  is  a  hun- 
dred times  more  prompt  and  vigorous  than  a  monarchy  in 
providing  against  all  attempt  at  revolt  or  disunion,  how- 
ever legitimate  or  deserved.  Woe  to  him  who,  when  she 
is  once  mistress,  dare  deny  her  the  plenitude  of  absolute 
power  !  The  Convention  taught  heroic  La  Vendee  the  cost 
of  claiming  the  simple  rights  of  conscience,  which  had  been 
outraged  by  the  omnipotence  of  the  State;  and  even  in 
our  days,  the  radical  cantons  of  Switzerland  have  revived 
that  lesson  against  the  primitive  cantons,  the  cradle  of 
Helvetian  liberty,  which  have  been  mercilessly  crushed 
and  fined  for  seeking  to  maintain  their  secular  indepen- 
dence. 

But  how,  will  it  be  said,  do  you  dare  deny  perchance  the 
necessity  of  reforms  in  the  Roman  States  ?  I  shall  ven- 
ture to  do  no  such  thing.  I  have  no  doubt  that  there  is 
need,  and  great  need,  of  reforms  at  Rome  as  elsewhere. 
Only  I  do  not  exactly  understand,  and  no  one  in  France 
knows  very  well,  what  reforms  are  required,  what  are  con- 
ceded, what  are  refused,  what  have  already  been  granted, 
and  what  are  about  to  be  carried  out.  No  one  defines 
them,  no  one  discusses  them,  and,  in  fact,  no  one  takes 
any  interest  in  them.  Of  the  four  reforms  laid  down  in 
the  letter  to  M.  Edgard  Ney,  there  is  one,  the  general  am- 
nesty,  already  carried  out,  and  utterly  inefficacious;  an- 
other, a  liberal  government,^  the  meaning  of  which  has 

*  All  the  discussions  of  1849  prove  that  by  these  words  was  understood 
a  kind  of  parliamentary  gof ernment,  with  one  or  two  assemblies,  like  those 
Pius  IX.  created  in  1848..  But  France  can  scarcely  ask  the  Pope  for  what 
she  lias  abolislied  at  home. 


■!■ 


I 


IH 


\ 


32 


PIUS  IX.  AND  PRANCE 


IN  1849  AND  IN  1859. 


33 


ii' 

I 


-n. 


evidently  changed  since  then,  and  which  awaits  a  new  in- 
terpretation. There  remain  the  two  last,  secular  adminiS' 
tration, — w  hich  can  hardly  extend  to  the  suppression  of  the 
Pope  and  the  Cardinals, — and,  lastly,  the  Code  NapoUon. 
We  have  never  been  told,  except  as  to  what  relates  to  di- 
vorce and  civil  marriage,  in  what  respect  this  code,  which 
is  exclusively  a  civil  code,  differs  from  the  civil  law  which 
the  Rome  of  the  Popes  has  borrowed  from  the  Rome  of 
the  Emperors.  The  most  learned,  in  speaking  of  it,  seem  to 
confound  it  with  our  codes  of  civil  and  criminal  procedure. 

But  even  admitting  all  these  reforms  to  be  necessary, 
legitimate,  and  possible,  is  Romagna  the  only  country  re- 
quiring them  ?  All  countries  require  reforms,  and  all  are 
asking  for  them. 

In  England,  reform  is  the  constant  war-cry  of  every 
party.  In  Austria,  in  Prussia,  throughout  the  whole  Ger- 
manic Confederation,  there  must  be  urgent  and  radical 
reforms.  This  desire,  this  want,  is  universal,  and  I  will- 
ingly believe  that  it  is  everywhere  legitimate ;  but  where, 
except  in  the  Roman  States,  has  it  been  sought  to  turn  it 
into  the  dispossession — ^into  the  destruction  of  the  sovereign 
power  ?  Where  has  it  be(;n  proposed  to  rely  on  invasion  or 
foreign  rule  to  exercise  it?  Nowhere,  unless  it  be  in  the 
Roman  States,  to  the  detriment  of  the  Pope,  and  that,  too, 
only  three  years  after  a  sanguinary  war,  entered  into  solely 
to  chastise  Russia  for  having  sought  to  introduce,  by  an 
abuse  of  its  influence,  reforms  favourable  to  the  Christian 
subjects  of  the  Turk.        \ 

Moreover,  let  us  be  honest,  and  go  to  the  root  of  the 
subject.  Is  there  a  thinking  man  Avho  believes  that  any 
reforms  whatever  would  content  or  disarm  a  single  one  of 
the  enemies,  internal  or  external,  of  the  Holy  See  ?  Is  it 
not  a  cruel  mockery  to  seek  to  draw  from  the  Pope  con- 
cessions which,  even  in  anticipation,  are  flung  l)ack  in  his 
teeth  ?  Who  does  not  know  that  the  dominant  party,  the 
Picdmoutesc   party   in    Romagna,    fans   and   lightens   up 


against  the  Pope  the  same  spirit  as  that  which  animates, 
for  very  different  reasons,  Venice  against  Austria  ?  Have 
not  the  popular  Venetian  organs  solemnly  declared  that 
any  reform,  any  concessions,  any  benefit,  emanating  from 
Austria,  will  be  impotent  to  calm  or  influence  popular  feel- 
ing  ?  No  Austria!  say  they ;  that  is  our  only  programme. 
No  Pope !  is  the  true,  the  only  programme  of  the  revolu- 
tionists in  Romagna,  as  elsewhere.  Legislative  or  adminis- 
trative  ameliorations  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  No 
more  now  than  in  1848 ;  that  is  not  what  is  wanted. 

In  1848,  Pius  IX.  gave  or  prepared  all.    Which  of  them 
restrained  Mazzini  or  disarmed  Garibaldi  ?     The  same  men 
are  now  again  all-powerful.     They  have  neither  changed 
their  bearing  or  programme.     Those  who,  out  of  regard 
for  the  factitious  scruples  of  diplomacy,  yet  conceal  the 
real  and  whole  end  they  aim  at,  are  fully  aware  that  they 
deceive  no  one,  and  that  all  who  listen  to  them  and  support 
them  are  accomplices.     This  end  is  avowed  by  the  more 
candid,  and  is  the  only  one  which  rouses  and  animates  the 
more  intelligent  directors  of  the  movement  in  Italy  as  in 
France.     Their  aim  is  the  total  destruction  of  the  sove- 
reignty of  the  Pope ;  firstly,  because  he  is  the  Pope,  and 
finaUy,  because  he  is  the  insurmountable  obstacle  to  the 
union  of  Italy  under  a  single  master. 

It  is  to  this  chimera  of  Italian  unity,  with  Rome  as  its 
capital,  that  the  chiefs  and  partisans  of  the  Piedmontese 
movement  in  Romagna  invincibly  tend.  It  is  to  this  fatal 
chimera,  as  repugnant  to  the  true  policy  of  France,  as 
contrary  to  the  past  glories  of  Italy,  and  to  the  moral,  in- 
tellectual, and  social  interest  of  its  peoples,  that  are  sacri- 
ficed, sacred  rights  guaranteed  equally  by  the  faith  of 
treaties,  and  by  our  best  traditions.  And  for  this  all  will 
be,  more  or  less,  voluntarily  accomplices  who,  pressing, 
harassing,  weakening,  or  oppressing  the  liberty  of  the  Holy 
See,  and  who  exacting  from  it,  under  the  shock  of  a 
victorious    insurrection,   concessions    rejected   beforehand, 

c 


i^  \' 


\ 


34 


PIUS  IX.  AND  FRANCE 


IN  1849  AND  IN  1859. 


35 


place  it  between  the  shame  of  yielding  up  everything,  or 
of  suffering  the  worst. 

God  preserve  us  from  wishing  to  wound  those  honest 
and  sincere  but  deluded  people  who  have  seen  in  the  war 
in  Italy  the  work  of  liberal  emancipation  !  We  give  them 
credit  for  their  hopes  and  their  illusions ;  we  do  not  con- 
found them  with  those  imbecile  or  guilty  revolutionists 
who  have  substituted  an  impious  euterprise  and  an  insoluble 
question  to  the  great  and  legitimate  cause  of  Italian  inde- 
pendence. 

But  we  must  declare  that,  if  Italy  had  really  understood 
her  mission  and  her  glory ;  if,  instead  of  decreeing  a  statue 
to  cunning,  to  falsehood,  to  political  depravity,  personified 
in  Machiavelli,^  she  had  remained  faithful  to  the  inspira- 
tions of  the  Foscolos,  the  Manzonis,  and  the  Balbos,  the 
true  originators  of  her  modern  patriotism,  she  should  first 
of  all  have  set  apart,  as  beyond  all  question,  the  twofold 
majesty  of  the  Holy  See. 

It  was  a  compulsory  homage,  a  debt  of  honour  and  of 
conscience,  of  justice  and  of  gratitude  to  Pius  IX.,  to  him 
who,  as  early  as  1846,  gave  the  glorious  signal  of  reform 
and  emancipation,  who  was  acknowledged  even  in  Novem- 
ber, 1848,  as  the  promoter  of  the  resurrection  of  Italy,t 
and  who  only  stopped  at  a  revolution  inaugurated  by  as- 
sassination. Then  it  might  have  acquired  the  sympathies 
of  the  whole  world ;  every  generous  soul,  every  right  mind, 
every  honest  heart,  would  have  followed  in  the  track  of  its 
victories,  its  success,  its  emancipation.  But  alas,  borne 
away  by  perverse  ambition  or  blind  illusions,  it  did  not 
fear  to  enlist  against  it  everything  which  more  or  less 
clings  to  the  Catholic  faith.  It  intimidated,  saddened,  and 
detached  from  its  cause  those  whose  adhesion  would  have 
been  at  once  its  succour  and  its  honour. 

*  It  is  known  that  the  Tuscan  Government  has  just  decided  that  statues 
shall  be  erected  to  Machiavelli  m  well  as  to  the  Emperor  Napoleon  III.  and 
King  Victor  Emmanuel. 

t  Speech  of  M.  Bixio,  *  Moniteur,'  29tli  November,  1848. 


She  has  given  herself  up  unreservedly  to  those  who  profess 
and  who  practise,  not,  it  must  be  said  and  repeated  a  thou- 
sand times,  hatred  for  any  particular  abuse,  or  even  for  any 
particular  faith,  but  hatred  and  systematic  and  utter  con- 
tempt for  the  most  profound,  the  most  enduring  sentiment 
which  the  human  race  have  ever  yet  known — the  Catholic 
sentiment. 

Even  of  those  who,  out  of  regard  for  revolution  or  any 
other  motive,  insist  that  France  and  Europe  shall  sanction 
the  revolt  of  Romagna,  it  has  been  incessantly  demanded — 
and  it  must  be  demanded  again  and  again — why  do  you 
apply  to  this  province  a  right  the  application  of  which  is  so 
obstinately  refused   in  all   the  other  States  of  Europe? 
Hence  the  arguments,  the  examples,  the  proofs  of  the  incon- 
sistency of  the  revolutionary  theory,  and  its  self-contradic- 
tions are  innumerable.     They  run  glibly  under  the  pen. 
Twenty  years  ago  two  Belgian  provinces,  Luxemburg  and 
Limburg,  refused  to  be  separated  from  Belgium  and  to  be 
incorporated  with  Holland  to  suit  the  requirements  of  di- 
plomacy.   They  had  in  support  of  their  cause  the  best  rea- 
sons— religious,  political,  and  historical.^    Lord  Palmer- 
ston  and  Lord  John  Russell,  then,  as  now  Ministers  of 
the  nation  which  pretends  everyw  here  to  respect  and  pi:o- 
mote  the  triumph  of  the  wishes  of  the  populations,  mocked 
the  complaints  and  the  repugnance  of  these  fragments  of 
a  people.     Ten  years  back  the  Duchies  of  Holstein  and 
Schleswig  rose  in  insurrection  against  Denmark;  and  at 
this   moment  no  man  doubts  that  the   people   of  those 
Duchies,  almost  exclusively  German,  ardently  desire  to  be 
detached   from  the    Scandinavian   kingdom.      Republican 
France,    and    England,    have   refused   to   recognize   their 
rights,  and  have  sacrificed  them  to  what  they  regard  as 
one  of  the  conditions  of  the  balance  of  power  in  Europe. 
Ten  years  ago  England,  having  Lord  Palmerston  and 

*  See  Letter  of  the  Count  Felix  de  M^rode  to  Lord  Palmerston,  and  the 
'  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  '  of  July  15  and  August  15,  1868. 


\ 


\ 


36 


PIUS  IX.  AND  FRANCE 


IN  1849  AND  IN  1859. 


37 


Lord  Jolin  Russell  for  her  Ministers,  repressed  with  im- 
placable severity  the  simple  appearance  of  revolt  in  the 
Ionian  Islands,  where  religion,  habits,  traditions,  interests, 
language, — everything,  in  a  word,  without  exception,  is 
repugnant  to  British  domination !  and  it  is  England  which 
now  dares,  on  the  opposite  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  to  press 
down  with  all  the  force  of  her  iniquitous  partiality  the 
balance  in  which  are  weighed  wrongs  a  hundredfold  less 
weighty,  repugnance  a  thousand  times  less  legitimate,  than 
that  which  she  has  drowned  in  blood  at  Corfu. 

Sixty  years  ago  she  did  worse  still — she  repressed  the  re- 
volt in  Ireland  with  a  ferocity  worthy  of  the  Convention.-^ 
I  am  not  one  of  those  blind  volunteers  who  confound  the 
present  condition  of  Ireland  with  what  it  was  in  1798.     I 
believe  that  Ireland  would  gain  nothing  in  any  respect  by 
separation  from  the  British  Empire ;  but  I  abhor  the  poli- 
ticians who  employ  two  sets  of  weights  and  measures,  and  I 
affirm  with  all  Europe,  which  knows  it  well  without  daring 
to  say  so,  that  there  is  not  a  single  one  of  the  arguments 
invented,  dealt  in,  and  exaggerated  by  English  journalists 
and  orators  against  the  Pontifical  Government  in  Roma- 
gna,  which  could  not  be,  and  which  is  not  every  day,  re- 
torted by  the  patriots  and  Catholics  against  English  do- 
mination in-  Ireland.     Doubtless,  logic  does  not  always  go- 
vern politics  :  happily,  it  is  not  everything  in  the  world ; 
but,  happily,  also,  it  is  something.     And  assuredly  it  will 
not  be  permitted  to  this  illustrious  nation,  so  wofully  led 
astray,  to  heap  with  impunity  one  upon  the  other  all  these 
flagrant,  repeated,  and  impudent  violations  of  the  rules  of 
logic,  which  are  in  this  instance  identical  with  those  of 
morality  and  humanity,  of  Divine  justice,  and  public  shame. 
And  the  East,  and  all  those  Christian  populations  groan- 
ing under  the  ignominious  yoke  of  the  Sultan, — all  those 

•  See  also  the  documents  relating  to  the  insurrection  of  1798,  and  especi- 
•  ally  the  correspondence  of  the  Lord  Lieutenant  Lord  ComwalUs,  recently 
published. 


races  so  intelligent,  so  unfortunate,  so  forsaken,  and  so 
basely  abused  by  a  decrepit  barbarism,  and  who  are  for- 
bidden in  the  name  of  European  equilibrium  to  seek  pro- 
tection, and  emancipation,  where  they  hoped  to  find  it;  who 
thinks  of  them  ?  who  has  seriously  sought  to  put  the  hand 
to  that  work,  especially  in  England,  so  eager  to  upset 
Italy  ? 

And  Savoy  !  She  is  there,  at  our  very  doors  ;  every  one 
knows  her,  visits  her,  traverses  her. 

Who  therefore  has  met,  within  the  last  few  years,  with 
the  exception  of  salaried  clerks,  a  single  partisan  of  Pied- 
montese  domination?  Is  that  a  sufficient  reason  for 
Europe  to  pull  down  the  ancient  edifice  of  its  kings  ?  I 
say.  No ;  but  you  should  say.  Yes ; — you  who  support  and 
foment  the  much  less  unanimous  discontent  in  Romagna : 
nevertheless  you  are  unanimous  in  disdaining,  in  condemn- 
ing, or  denying  the  sincerity  of  her  wishes  and  the  inten- 
sity of  her  anguish. 

Take  Poland,  the  greatest  and  the  most  illustrious  of 
oppressed  and  suppressed  nationalities,  Poland,  formerly 
so  warmly  exploited  by  the  Liberals  of  every  country  and 
every  shade.  In  what  respect  has  her  fate  been  ameli- 
orated ?  How  has  her  life  been  rekindled  ?  How  has 
eternal  justice,  outreiged  by  the  assassination  of  a  people, 
been  appeased  ?  In  no  respect.  Nevertheless,  you  are  all 
silent ;  and  as  if  your  silence  did  not  suffice  to  confound 
you,  behold  Russia  advances,  smiling  under  her  new  mask 
of  philanthropy  and  of  liberalism.  Behold  her  oifering 
her  hand,  upon  which  the  blood  of  Poland  is  not  yet  dry, 
and  you  accept  it.  Behold  her, — her,  so  expert  with  re- 
spect to  the  salvation  of  nationalities,  of  liberty  restored, 
of  faith  respected,  who  comes  to  ask  of  Austria  an  account 
of  Italian  nationality,  and  of  the  Pope,  of  the  civil  and 
religious  liberty  of  the  Romagnese.  And  I  am  still  seek- 
ing the  democratic  writer  who  in  the  name  of  his  con- 
science, or  of  his  indignant  recollections,  has  dared  to 
throw  aside  such  an  auxiliary. 


)  . 


\ 


ir '  . 


38 


PltJS    IX.    AND    FRANCE 


IN    1849   AND    IN    1859. 


39 


We  know  the  answer  stammered  out  to  these  irrefutable 
recriminations.  Yonder,  it  is  s  id,  in  the  East,  in  Poland, 
in  Ireland,  a  thousand  difficulties  oppose  our  work ;  our 
connections,  our  momentary  sympathies  restrain  us;  we 
cannot  do  all  we  could  wish.  But  here  in  Eomagna, 
against  an  old  priest,  without  soldiers  and  without  money, 
we  can  do  anything  we  please. 

Can  you?  Are  you  sure?  Materially,  yes;  but  mo- 
rally, no ;  for  you  ought  not ;  and  if  you  are  deaf  to  the 
voice  of  duty,  may  others,  more  enlightened  and  more 
conscientious  than  you,  not  always  be  so  to  the  voice  of 
interest ! 

What  interest  can  any  power,  whether  conservative  or 
liberal,  monarchical  or  republican,  find  to  arm  against  itself 
the  unanimous  animadversion  of  the  Catholics  of  the  whole 
world.  It  may  be  said,  it  is  of  no  consequence.  But  it  is 
of  some  consequence.  No  intelligent  Sovereign,  no  con- 
siderate politician,  can  look  with  indifference  on  the  dis- 
satisfaction of  a  powerful  opinion  spread  over  the  surface 
of  the  globe ;  therefore  the_  most  hostile  minds,  as  well  as 
the  most  superficial,  cannot  deny  that  the  true  Catholics 
still  constitute  a  great  and  powerful  opinion  in  the  world, 
and  this  opinion  is  unanimous.  On  politics,  on  philosophy, 
on  history.  Catholics  are  decidedly  and  happily  divided; 
I  say  happily,  for  division  is  better  than  union  in  that 
which  is  false  and  in  that  which  is  base;  but  they  are 
unanimous  in  favour  of  the  Pontifical  right ;  unanimous 
in  considering  any  injury  done  to  their  Father  as  the 
greatest  insult  that  could  be  inflicted  on  themselves.  On 
this  there  are  not  three  opinions ;  there  are  not  two ;  there 
is  but  one.  Exceptions,  if  there  be  any,  form  the  rule.  I 
defy*  any  one  to  find  amongst  us  one  dissentient  in  a  thou- 
sand. Catholics  do  not  confound,  as  they  are  falsely  ac- 
cused of  doing,  the  temporal  with  the  spiritual;  but  all 
believe  in  the  necessity  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope 
for  the  spiritual  independence  of  the  Catholic  world.     In 


that  they  do  not  see  a  dogma,  an  article  of  faith ;  they  see 
simply  a  right,  human  if  you  will,  and  submitted  to  the 
uncertainties  of  human  things;  but  still  providential,  sacred, 
and  legitimate  amongst  all.  They  see  an  indispensable 
guarantee  which  nothing  else  can  replace,  and  which  is  for 
them  all  which  was  afforded  by  the  ancient  organization 
of  society,  where  the  spiritual  power  had  a  thousand  bul- 
warks, a  thousand  citadels,  a  thousand  privileges  which  no 
longer  exist.  No  one  seeks  them,  no  one  regrets  them; 
but  their  destruction  renders  the  entire  integrity  of  Pon- 
tifical independence  the  more  necessary  for  the  security 
and  dignity  of  the  faith.  Is  there  any  other  way  so  that 
the  supreme  Pontiff  of  the  Catholic  faith  should  not  be 
treated  as  the  '  Siecle '  wishes  us  to  treat  our  bishops,  so 
that  no  one  should  come  to  say  to  them  in  the  name  of 
democracy,  Hold  your  tongue,  you  are  but  a  paid  agent. 
Is  there  in  the  state  of  European  society,  a  combination 
or  organization  which  could  replace  the  Catholic  faith  and 
the  indispensable  independence  of  their  Father,  and  gua- 
rantee the  temporal  sovereignty  of  the  Pope?  No  one 
has  ever  thought  of  it ;  no  one  has  ever  discovered  it.  It 
is  neither  the  mandates  nor  the  councils  where  it  is  spoken 
of;  it  is  the  unanimous  voice  of  conscientious  statesmen, 
who  have  thought  on  great  political  and  social  interests. 
There  is  not  one  who  would  not  say  with  M.  Odilon 
Barrot,  then  President  of  the  Council,  in  the  memorable 
discussion  which  we  have  already  cited,  "The  two  powers 
must  be  confounded  in  the  Roman  States,  so  that  they 
should  remain  separate  for  the  rest  of  the  world.'^"^ 

When  we  do  not  require  Catholicism ;  when  we  regard 
the  Church  as  the  enemy  of  the  human  race,  and  the 
clergy  as  a  criminal  which  must  be  stifled  in  the  mire, 
there  is  nothing  more  easy  or  more  logical  than  to  attack 
that  which  is  the  foundation-stone  of  the  exterior  and 
temporal  organization  of  Catholicism ;  but  there  is  nothing 

*  *  Moniteiir '  of  the  2l8t  October,  1849. 


k.  A 


\ 


40 


PIUS    IX.    AND    FRANCE 


IN    1849    AND    IN    1859. 


41 


less  inteUigible   or  more  culpable,  when   we   understand 
and  when  we  proclaim  the  value  and  the  social  necessity  of 

religion. 

It  must  not  be  sought  to  represent  that  it  is  only  a 
Romagnese  question,  that  is  to  say,  of  a  portion  of  a  frag- 
ment of  that  temporal  sovereignty  recognized  as  indispen- 
sable in  principle.     Doubtless  the  temporal  power  of  the 
Pope  has  been  and  may  be  diminished  or  increased  the 
same  as  any  other  power  of  this  world ;  but  beyond  that 
his  right  to  the  province  of  which  it  is  sought  to  deprive 
him  is  founded  upon  treaties,  upon  the  rights  of  nations, 
upon  a  possession,  to  say  the  least,  as  legitimate  as  that  of 
Piedmont  to  the  republic  of  Genoa,  or  of  France  to  Cor- 
sica ;  as  legitimate  as  any  other  in  Europe.     It  must  not 
be  permitted  that  one  or  two  stones  of  the  edifice  should 
be  removed  by  arguments  and  principles  which,  once  re- 
cognized and  adopted,  would  of  necessity  destroy  it  alto- 
gether. 

It  is  possible  that  it  may  perisli,  this  old  and  holy  edifice, 
which  for  eleven  centuries  has  braved  so  many  storms ;  it 
is  possible  that  the  holy  principality  may  be  joined  in  a 
common  ruin  with  all  the  ancient  rights  of  Europe  so 
obstinately  invaded  and  so  miserably  upheld.  That  is 
possible;  everything  is  possible  here  below.  None  of  us 
indissolubly  unite  the  existence  of  the  Papacy  with  that 
of  its  temporal  power ;  whatever  happens,  that  will  sur- 
vive, and  with  it  our  faith  and  our  filial  love.  Providence 
will  find  other  means  to  accomplish  the  infallible  mission. 

"  Fata  viam  invenient." 

But  it  must  also  be  said,  if  this  ancient,  useful,  and 
legitimate  position  of  supreme  authority  be  destroyed ;  if 
monarchs  and  revolutionists  unite, — the  former,  to  shake, 
the  latter,  to  overthrow,— we  shall  always  have  the  right 
to  assert,  even  to  the  latest  posterity,  that  they  have  done 
wrong.     It  will  be  at  once  a  fault  and  a  crime,  a  mistake 


and  an  injustice.  It  will  be  a  bad  end  attained  by  bad 
means.  It  will  be  the  most  flagrant  violation,  in  an  age 
of  violations,  of  the  laws  of  mankind  and  the  public  laws 
of  civilized  nations.  It  will  be  the  triumph  of  cunning 
and  violence  over  honour,  over  betrayed  helplessness,  and 
baffled  faith.  It  is  the  fashion  among  our  great  pam- 
phleteers, so  complaisant  to  the  strong,  so  disdainful  of  the 
weak,  to  ridicule  the  tears  and  the  thunder  of  the  Pope. 
Yes ;  we  know  that  the  tears  of  the  Pope  only  affect  his 
faithful  children,  and  his  thunder  only  alarms  those  whom 
it  does  not  threaten.  But  they  are  none  the  less  the  tears 
of  innocence,  the  thunder  of  justice.  Neither  will  the 
former  always  remain  fruitless,  nor  the  latter  always  im- 
potent. Our  mouths  will  not  be  closed  long  or  for  ever. 
A  thousand  voices  in  the  Church  and  in  history  will  re- 
echo the  non  licet  of  the  Gospel.  Understand  it  well: 
non  licet.  It  is  nothing,  yet  it  is  all.  It  prevents  nothing 
for  the  while,  it  determines  everything  for  the  future,  in 
the  judgment  of  God  as  in  the  judgment  of  men.  It  did 
not  stay  Herod  from  doing  what  he  chose ;  but  after  all, 
who  would  wish  to  have  been  Herod  ?  It  did  not  hinder 
Pilate  from  permitting  the  triumph  of  the  passions  of  a 
blind  and  guilty  people,  contenting  himself  with  washing 
his  hands  of  it.  But  who  then  would  be  the  Pilate  of  the 
Papacy  ? 

Ch.  de  Montalembert. 


:  vi 


\ 


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Histoire  de  la  Vie  et  des  Ouvrages  de  P.  Corneille;  par  M.  Tascheeeau 

Memoires  de  Beaumarchais. 

Marie-Antoinette  et  la  Revolution  Fran^aise ;  par  le  Comte  de  Viel  Castel 

Li9i€  Alphabetique  des  Ouvrages  publics  en  France  jusqu' cm  20  Aotit  1859. 


LIVRAISON   DU   1"  OCTOBRE   1859. 

La  Triste  Yerite. 

L'Etat  de  la  Presse  en  France. 

Ce  uui  se  prepare  contre  L'Angleterre. 

Bulletin  Dramatkiue. 

partie  litteraire. 

Lettres  originales  de  la  Duchesse  d'Orl^ans,  par  G.  H.  de  Schubert. 
Jranfois  \  illon,  sa  Vie  et  ses  (Euvres ;  par  A.  Campaux. 
Clement  d'Alexandrie.  sa  doctrine  et  sa  poleraique ;  par  I'Abbe  Cognat. 
Dauiel  Chamier;  Journal  de  son  Voyage  k  la  Cour  de  Henri  IV,  et  sa  Bio- 

graphic;  par  C.  Readf.  ^ 

Pieces  Nouvelles :  Un  Ange  de  Charity  ;  La-  Jeunesse  de  Louis  XL 
Les  Morahstes  Anglais;  par  Alphonse  EsauiRos. 
L'Angleterre  et  la  Vie  Anglaise ;  par  Alphonse  EsauiRos. 
De  la  Vie  des  Comediens ;  par  Emile  Deschanel. 
Recueil  des  Factums  d'Antoine  Furetiere;  par  Charles  Asselineau. 
i.ute  Alpfiabetique  des  Ouvrages  publics  en  France  Jusqu' au  20  Septembre 


LIVRAISON  DU   1«  NOVEMBRE  1859. 

^*''' NapTeon^IL  ^^^^^   "^   ''^  ^""^"'^  ''^  ^^^^  '^"  "^'^^^^  «°^« 
Les  Protestations  des  fivfeauES  PkANCAis. 
Comment  amener  une  Guerre. 
La  Bourse  de  Paris. 

PARTIE    LITTERAIRE. 
La  Le'gende  des  Siecles;  par  Victor  Hugo. 

pSp'n  ^^  ^;^''^5^P«°^ance  tires  des  Papiers  de  Madame  Recamier. 
Preface  nouvelle  a  La  Question  Romaine;  par  E.  About. 
^ibliotheque  Contemporaine :  Hommes  du  Jour. 
Les  Roses  de  Noel.     La  Veilleuse.     Par  J.-T.  de  Saint-Germain. 
i^es  Romans  de  la  Table  Honde  et  les  Contes  des  anciens  Bretons ;  par  le  Vi- 
comte  de  LA  Villemarque.  ^ 

mtoi^raJT^'^'t^''^^^^^^  ^  ^"  ^'"8*"°-  P^^  E.  DE  Press'ense. 

Anuum  '  Pohtiques  des  Reformes  en  France;    par  Leonc. 

^ie  Alphaheliipie  des  Ouvrages  pub Ues  en  France  jusqu' au  20  Octobre  1859. 


SOUVEKIES  ET  COEEESPONDANCE 

TIRES   BBS   PAPIERS.  DE 

MADAME  R£CAMIER. 

2  vols.  in-8*.     15*. 


LA  PAIX  DE  VILLAFBANCA 
ET  LES  CONFEEENCES   DE  ZUEICBL 

1  vol.  in-S".    5». 
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TBAITfiS,  CONVENTIONS  ET  ACTES 
DIPLOMATIQUES 

CONCERNANT 

L'AUTEICHE  ET  L'lTALIE, 

1  vol.  ia-8«.     15«. 


LA  QUESTION  ROMAINE; 

Par  E.  About.     Augmentee  d'une  Preface  uouvelle.     Cinquieme  ^tion, 

1  vol.  iii-8®.     5«. 


LA  BELLA  BALLA; 

Par  Madame  la  Comtewe  Montemerli.     1  vol.  iQ.12. 


LE  CAUCASE; 

Par  Aluxandrb  Dumas.    3  vol.  in-12.    lOt.  6d. 


LE    MAGASIN    DE    LIBRAIRIE, 

Public  par  CHAKPENTIEK,  Editeur, 
Avec  le  concours  des  principaux  fecrivains. 

Le  Magmin  de  Librairie  se  compose,  comme  son  titre  I'mdique,  d'ouvragcs 
inedits,  composes  dans  ies  tlitfereuts  genres  de  la  Bibliographie,  Histoire, 
Memoi'res,  Philosophic,  Poesies,  etc.  etc.  . 

La  publication  du  Magamn  de  litraine  a  lieu  par  Livraison  de  160  pages, 
in.8«,  paraissant  tous  Ies  15  et  25  de  chaque  raois.     1».  3d. 


1.  NDON:    W.JEFFS,   15.  BURLINGTON  AECADE, 
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